How Did Dogs Evolve?

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]David Ian, how how are you?

[00:00:01]>> Yeah, man. Good, man. How are you?

[00:00:04]>> I'm very well. I'm very well. So, >> big fan of the channel, by the way.

[00:00:08]>> Well, I'm a big fan of your work as well.

[00:00:11]>> Thanks.

[00:00:11]>> You are You are the man on dogs.

[00:00:14]>> You are the >> Yeah, >> you're the You're the dude.

[00:00:18]>> I get asked questions quite a bit about dogs and I I answer them as much as best I can.

[00:00:22]>> I'm sure you do. [laughter] >> So, your handle on Instagram is ethnoscyinology.

[00:00:28]You got it.

[00:00:29]>> Yeah. So what is ethnosinology exactly?

[00:00:33]>> Yeah. So it's the study of dogs in human cultural contexts would be the the best definition. But like ethno people sino is dog. So like joining those two together.

[00:00:44]>> Nice.

[00:00:45]>> Yeah.

[00:00:45]>> Are there many ethnosinologists?

[00:00:48]>> Uh just me and I guess technically Dr. Angela Perry who does all like the genetics research on dogs and stuff like that.

[00:00:56]>> Nice. Um, I'd say she's like the leading expert in academia right now. Yeah.

[00:01:01]>> So, not many then. Not many. That's interesting.

[00:01:04]>> No. Yeah. It's um it falls under zoology or anthropology, however you want to go about it. And then there's like a lot of dog psychology out there too. But um in terms of archaeology, yeah, this is ethnosinology. Is it >> dog psychology? I like it. I like it.

[00:01:22]>> Yeah. Can you have you ever bridged dog psychology into archaeology?

[00:01:29]>> Kind of. I guess you you could stretch it and say like understanding how dogs work psychologically and how they operate and like reward versus risk benefits and stuff like that. You can apply that to uh you know domestication and dog evolution in the past.

[00:01:44]>> Nice.

[00:01:45]>> So it it can inform that. But in in the sense of psychologically evaluating a dead dog, I have not done that. Yeah.

[00:01:52][laughter] >> So, you studied archaeology?

[00:01:57]>> I did. Yeah.

[00:01:58]>> Yeah.

[00:01:59]>> And then at what point did you did you branch out into dogs?

[00:02:03]>> Um, I mean, I always loved dogs. It was never something I wanted to study, but uh I I don't know really what did it.

[00:02:13]There's a million things, but I remember watching a History Channel documentary called Mankind, the story of all of us, and it was narrated by Josh Brolan, and like the the first 10 minutes is like humans in the ice age, and they talk about or humans in Africa, and then the ice age in Europe, and like within 10 minutes they're like, "Oh, yeah, and then dogs, you know, exist." And then they went on to the bronze age. And I was like, "Well, go back." Like [snorts] I want to I want to learn about that.

[00:02:37]And then I went to school for that because I was already in archaeology.

[00:02:41]and um stone tools, paleo people in in North America. And then I went to grad school specifically to like learn more about, you know, prehistoric dogs.

[00:02:51]>> Everybody loves dogs.

[00:02:53]>> I mean, everybody that I know loves dogs anyway.

[00:02:56]>> Yeah. Right. And some people are afraid of dogs, I found, but like they still at least have an interest in them because they're around, you know?

[00:03:04]>> But yeah, I haven't met someone who outwardly is like, I don't like dogs.

[00:03:07]Like I've I've yet to meet that person.

[00:03:09]Yeah, I suppose it does happen, but that's Yeah, if they've been attacked by a dog or something like that.

[00:03:14]>> Yeah.

[00:03:14]>> Yeah.

[00:03:15]>> Yeah. Cool, man.

[00:03:17]>> Yeah.

[00:03:18]>> Dog burials in the Paleolithic.

[00:03:21]>> Yeah.

[00:03:21]>> You come across many of these?

[00:03:24]>> I've never dug up a Paleolithic site in Europe. I've not done an archaeology in Europe. Um there are no dogs here until about 10,000 that we know of in the Americas till 10,000 years ago. Um so nothing in the Paleolithic per se.

[00:03:39]But yeah, the the Paleolithic burials like overseas, especially in like Siberia, the like Ball area are pretty like extraordinary. They're just buried really well. A lot of them in Scandinavia, too. And there's a few in Germany that I know of. I think the Netherlands, >> but like beloved clan members, right?

[00:04:00]>> You can debate that. Um people I I would agree with you. Yeah. like it the I guess the debate is whether it's a wolf or a dog because you really can't tell um with just the skeletons especially that far back. But my my interpretation would be if humans cared enough to bury a lupine like creature in a burial that ornately or with other people therefore it had some significance or like they revered it in some sense. So I I would agree. Yeah. And that seems to be pretty cross-cultural in the Paleolithic.

[00:04:31]There's some places where they're just thrown into like mitten piles as if they were like being eaten or just, you know, discarded like any other refu. Uh but and that's really common around the world, too. But yeah, the ornate burials in Paleolithic Europe and Asia are pretty cool.

[00:04:46]>> And then sometimes you get humans thrown into midens. So that's about >> seen a lot of that, too. Yeah. It's just like you got to throw them somewhere.

[00:04:54][laughter] Basically, >> I mean, so these dogs that are um buried in these ornate ways, do we know how they died?

[00:05:04]>> Um I'm trying to think of a specific example.

[00:05:09]>> The ones that I know of, sometimes they're like they're in their prime when they've died. Uh they're not like too old of a dog. They're not they don't have any like wear and tear on them that bad yet. Uh which could indicate like it was a sacrificial thing.

[00:05:22]>> Yeah. um or that you know it got gored by a boar or something or a rhino, whatever they were hunting. Um >> didn't have much impact on the body. I guess >> if it just hit their like bloodstream, like just a a flesh wound. Uh but like if they bled out or something, you wouldn't be able to see that. Or if they stabbed it in the heart or something and it didn't nick the the ribs, you wouldn't know. Um, there are dogs that are completely just like their ribs are broken, their spines are damaged and things like that. Probably a village dog had a hard life. Uh, hunting dogs, you know, clearly get gored by bores a lot.

[00:05:59]Um, I think this one >> or Yeah. or a mammoth at the time, which is wild to me that dogs existed while people were still hunting mammoths.

[00:06:08]Pretty cool.

[00:06:09]>> My dream find would be to find a dog just like, you know, shish kebabed onto a mammoth tusk. Um, but not going to find that. It could have rode out of the perafrost any day. But yeah, man. Uh, sacrificial or it was just that the dog died and they they put it to rest and it was a good hunting dog and they revered it in that sense.

[00:06:28]>> Or a particularly good dog.

[00:06:30]>> Yeah. Or that they loved it and it was a family dog. They just put, you know, that we can't tell, but we can we can assume.

[00:06:39]>> So, dogs first arrive in the Americas 10,000 years ago, more or less. Uh the first evidence we have of them is that old. Uh I would assume they arrived like you can tell genetically they should have arrived with Clovis people around that time. Uh we just haven't found evidence of them yet. Which to finding a dog at a site is very difficult. Um especially if they like are kicked and you know get away from the mammoth we're cutting up.

[00:07:04]>> Um you're not just going to find a dog bone there. But uh yeah, I would presume because dogs are domesticated in East Asia about 15 20 15,000 years ago. So that time is when people are start entering the Americas. You know, you can see them being traded across all of Eurasia into Africa and Europe. Um and they right at that split go into the Americas as well.

[00:07:29]>> Interesting. That was going to be my next question. So, okay. First evidence of dogs in the Americas, what 8,000 BCE, more or less, >> uh, BCE. Yeah. 8,000.

[00:07:40]>> But first people in the Americas evidence is quite a bit before that.

[00:07:45]>> Yeah. If we want to go with like the standard agreed upon date, I think Columbus is around 13,000 something.

[00:07:52]>> Uh, in Alaska, we can easily say 15,000 years ago, people are there. Um, there's other pre- club estates that are getting pushed back now, though some of them I don't find to be too compelling.

[00:08:05]>> White Sands, do you find that compelling or >> Yeah, White Sands I'm quite familiar with. The dating seems fine. I just I'm very interested to know like what those footprints looked like before they scooped them out because I think a lot of people see it like they look at that and it's like a stain in the ground that was scooped out in the shape of footprints. They just think it's footprints, but really what that was is a bunch of staining in the ground that the archaeologists presumed were footprints and scooped them like the stains out in that form. And then some of them have like six toes, which is odd.

[00:08:39]>> Uh which is just a result of them scooping it out. But I I would think it's a sloth because there's other sloth footprints at White Sands that are that old or older.

[00:08:49]>> Not aliens.

[00:08:50]>> Um definitely not aliens that I know of.

[00:08:52]Uh but we could we could find that out.

[00:08:54]I I'm more of a pessimist on White Sands than other people are. I'm sure most people probably agree that it's it's old. But my my thing with pre-clos is it's always something like that or it's like a tiny little flake that you have to like read a whole article on like why it is a flake or why it's a human-made tool. Whereas when you see a Clovis site, it's a very distinct like okay this is a tool industry. These people are doing this. You can see how they're living. Uh clo preclo is always >> odd in that sense, but I'm open to it.

[00:09:24]Um, and so along those lines, I would expect to see with an established Paleolithic culture in the Americas like Clovis, I guess it's more messylithic than Paleolithic, but you would see more dogs with them. Like you'd see evidence of it because I love so much other evidence, but we we don't see that yet.

[00:09:41]So that's another thing that like I'm kind of like a pessimist on pre-clus, but at the same time I'm like they had dogs and like there's no evidence of it yet either. So uh but genetically we should see it.

[00:09:50]>> Yeah.

[00:09:51]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cuz I always had the image of humans pretty much side by side with dogs almost since the beginning really. So crossing over the bearing straight with dogs. That was always idea I had. But it's interesting to think that there was a time when humans didn't have dogs in the paleithic. And you are you saying 15,000 BC more or less domestication?

[00:10:12]>> Uh 20,000 years before the present, whatever that is in BCE, something like that.

[00:10:19]>> Okay. Interesting. Very interesting.

[00:10:20]Very interesting. Yeah. And and Siberia.

[00:10:25]>> Yeah, that's where they it seems to East Asia, Siberia. Um and that's I guess your follow-up question would be why. Uh it just seems that humans like once you get to out of Africa into Eurasia and we're all established as modern humans or whatever, uh wolves and humans ate a lot of caribou in that area. And there were certain glaciating events that like kind of isolated people into that area.

[00:10:52]So they were kind of forced with little movement to like get along with dogs or get along with wolves and wolves had to get along with people in that sense. So, it was um not to say adapt or die to the wolves, but like when there's this other super invasive apex predator in the area, killing everything um or at least killing what they are efficiently, the wolves kind of have to adapt. And it's kind of like dogs to me just one Darwinism. Like they they don't have to do anything like a a cat can still go out on its own and hunt. Like some dogs I don't think know how they, you know, to tear things up and stuff like that.

[00:11:28]It's in their instinct. But a Chihuahua doesn't have to do anything to survive.

[00:11:33]It's just fed every day. Um, and wolves initially probably figured out like, okay, these big apes here with pointy rocks and fire have a lot of scraps.

[00:11:42]They leave. We can just go hunt that, eat that, and if we don't bite them, they'll give us more kind of thing. And whatever interpretation, if humans were killing the wolves and the the the nicer ones stayed around, that's one theory.

[00:11:55]If the wolves are doing it themselves and it's self- selected, that's another theory. If humans were going out there to pick, you know, wolves out of dens like puppies, uh, ones that and then raise them to be, you know, kinder on humans, that's another theory, too. And that would be artificial selection. But yeah, it all seems to point to genetically and archaeologically in Siberia.

[00:12:16]>> One of my questions was going to be I mean, was it the dogs domesticate themselves? I know there's this idea that cats kind of they did it themselves. It wasn't really the humans who actually made the first move. So, who made the first move?

[00:12:30]>> Yeah. Um, if I ramble, just let me know, too, by the way.

[00:12:34]>> Rumble away.

[00:12:35]>> Cool. [laughter] Uh, I can talk about this for hours, but um, yeah, that's that's kind of the thing. I think a lot of people like to just have kind of like with the the what we were talking about before with Broen and Dibble. People like to have a predetermined like here's how it is or they want an answer to it. the younger dus is a good answer to why everything died and the ice age ended. Uh, in my opinion, it's it's a it's a majority of com competing factors. Um, or myriad of competing factors, but um, in terms of dogs, yeah, it's it's anyone's guess without a time machine. It's just some form of natural selection with wolves, like self- selecting for, you know, don't bite the humans, they won't hurt us kind of thing. Cuz there that's technically would be natural selection in the sense that they're not that's there something they're doing on their own and they're adapting to a new species that's there, a new environment.

[00:13:30]That's what evolution is. Or is it humans selecting and killing the ones that are too aggressive? when in which case that would be human selection, artificial selection.

[00:13:41]I think it's a mix of both, but I would I would argue it was an inevitable coalition or co- co what do you call it?

[00:13:50]Co-evolution together. But yeah, I would say it's more that dogs did it themselves than humans did it if that makes sense.

[00:13:57]>> Yeah, >> that makes a lot of sense to be honest.

[00:14:00]I mean, humans were doing pretty well.

[00:14:03]Yeah, especially if you're thriving in Siberia at that time, you're you're doing something right.

[00:14:08]>> So, like there would have been lots of spare meat probably if you kill a mammoth just >> Yeah. And I don't know >> these guys >> for sure. And it could last you months probably. Um, plus all the utility and the skin, the hides, the the fur.

[00:14:25]>> It must have been a big SP on the landscape. You know, a mammoth kill.

[00:14:30]That's got to be a big big thing happening attracting a lot of scavengers maybe.

[00:14:36]>> Yeah. And that that's something I um for anyone that has seen my channel or wants to see it, I have a video on a bone needle we found in Wyoming. Um and it's a ice age clovis or falsome bone needle, paleoindian bone needle. And it's a at a mammoth kill site and they were using, you know, it was like fox bone and catbone to like sew up the mammoth hides and whatnot. But it seems like this site, uh, we know they had like red ochre at the site that's from like at least a two weeks walk away that they had to mine from somewhere else or they brought it with them. Uh, it looks like there's a bunch of groups at this site fully butchering the mammoth together, possibly like teaching each other stone tool stuff or, you know, just sharing culture. But yeah, like this site in Wyoming at 13,000 years old is like this cool aggregation site where you can tell other huntergatherer groups were coming together to either butcher this, hunt it together, butcher it together, or just take part in whatever ceremony went on.

[00:15:36]So my question there too is like, well, how do without dogs, how are they keeping the saber-tooth cats away? How are they doing, especially if they're cooking it and smoking it?

[00:15:44]>> Yeah, >> that's a world that I like without a dog, I can't fathom, you know.

[00:15:48]>> Yeah. Um, >> yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:15:50]>> Someone's just on alert the whole time.

[00:15:52]Sorry. Yeah.

[00:15:52]>> Oh, I love I love this idea of a a gathering event, different clans coming together, meeting for a hunt maybe, >> right?

[00:16:01]>> Having some sort of religious uh event possibly. Maybe there was a shaman there. Or am I just ahead of myself?

[00:16:09]>> No, I'm I'm right there with you, man.

[00:16:10]Like, I think that's that's probably the case. And we found a big huge stain of red ochre in the ground as if it like spilled onto the ground.

[00:16:20]>> But they probably were dying the hides with it or like painting their bodies with it or something. But I've never seen that much red ochre at a site before. So um I would imagine there's some ceremonial thing going on.

[00:16:31]>> I shouldn't say it, but ritual.

[00:16:35]>> Yeah. Yeah. Just file it under ritual.

[00:16:38][laughter] >> Yeah. But uh transposing that to the old world um like a big mammoth kill like that will probably was a spectacle would have attracted wolves and dogs and that's probably what you know brought it about >> like a feeding frenzy.

[00:16:53]>> Yeah.

[00:16:54]>> Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. I love this that period of history cuz humans are still animals, you know.

[00:17:01]>> Yeah. big the big top apex predators but still I mean we're animals now obviously but we like to think that we've escaped from that kind of world but you know at that point >> just a couple of animals >> cooperate hanging out >> hunting together >> it's pretty wild and I said this in my lecture too but if if you an alien were to come to our planet and like kind of document what's going on especially like let's say like 10,000 years ago document what's going on the biggest thing they would write obviously humans inhabiting almost every continent but Antarctica at the time but like the fact that there's a wolf with them that just walks around and like hangs out is it has to be the weirdest thing to see. Um and it'd be like Coco the gorilla talking to a fox, you know? Like it's just such a weird >> concept. Yeah.

[00:17:52]>> Yeah. I mean I'm I'm thinking about like fish that clean the algae off bigger fish and things like this. Raora fish.

[00:18:01]Yeah, >> it's not quite the same, but it it's interesting how some animals do cooperate with each other.

[00:18:06]>> I was reading the other day about octopi. Apparently, they cooperate with fish to hunt.

[00:18:12]>> Really?

[00:18:13]>> Yeah. Okay. Well, it's been observed anyway. I don't know if it's happening all the time, but uh they will sort of cooperate together and uh go on hunting missions.

[00:18:22]>> Crazy.

[00:18:22]>> Interesting.

[00:18:23]>> Crazy.

[00:18:23]>> I know that. Yeah. Sephopods are like so smart and creepy. Um, yeah, nature is weird.

[00:18:30]>> Yeah.

[00:18:30]>> Octopi. I like an octopi. They're basic they're basically aliens.

[00:18:34]>> Yeah. I essentially like the the way they operate, how intelligent they are.

[00:18:38]>> How different they are from everything.

[00:18:40]>> Yeah.

[00:18:41]>> What was my next question going to be?

[00:18:44]How did we end up with a with a pug? I mean, that's a that's a pretty strange pretty strange looking animal.

[00:18:52]>> Yeah, it is. My my best answer would be if you think about all the dogs in like that Victorian era of just like breeding tiny little things and like let's just go wild with it. Um cuz every dog before then had some kind of function either as a scavenger around human society or hunting or you know bassad hounds kind of thing like that but like or a collie but those are still relatively recent.

[00:19:20]Pugs are an definite example of like we want this animal to look as human as possible. Um, and it has a flat face, big eyes, a smaller nose, and it like it just looks like a human. That's like what they're trying to do with it. And like the little Frenchies, too. They look more human than anything. And domestication syndrome.

[00:19:42]>> Oh, sorry.

[00:19:43]>> That's really interesting. I've never thought about them looking like a human before.

[00:19:47]>> Yeah. I I mean a domestication in general is taking a wild robust animal and making it more grassile or docile.

[00:19:56]So if you think of like a ox or like the ancient cow, they're dead now, but they had big horns. Cows, their horns are gone, but you bred some have bred them back to have more horns. Ox to bulls. Um but like goats and ibecks, sheep and mulon, that's all just like a more babyed version of itself. like a dead easy to control version of the wife.

[00:20:19]>> Absolutely. Yeah. And that it's called neotony is the scientific term, but like when you look at a baby or a puppy and you get that feeling of like like that's that's what that is. Um and you want to protect that sheep better or that puppy better because it looks cuter. Uh and less more cute means less aggressive. So that just got bred into them. And it seems to be a scientific phenomena too that it's not just selected for. It just happens. Um like their ears will flop, their tails will wag more. Um that was the Siberian fal experiment. Figured that out too. But uh in terms of pugs, it's like they're taking that domestication syndrome and just like multiplying it into like a human-like animal that like can barely breathe. So yeah.

[00:21:06]>> Interesting. So >> yeah, >> these animals are being naturally selected because they are cuter almost.

[00:21:14]>> Uh yes, like it it's it's a side effect of breeding animals in captivity makes them more grass and docile in that sense. Yeah. And you see it with all domestic animals.

[00:21:28]>> Very interesting. So, so it just happens with sheep and cows and it's it's not a humans are not selectively breeding them necessarily.

[00:21:38]>> How would I phrase it? Like a a wild Ibex or like a wild Arox back in the day, they had dogs like help corral them into some kind of pen or something. Um or without dogs they did it somehow. Uh but like once those are in captivity and being bred uh and like kept in that area, they start to show those signs. it seems to be the case. So a good example to put it into perspective, the Siberian fox experiment was Dimmitri Belv and he took silver foxes and bred aggressive ones with aggressive ones and more docile ones with docile ones and he'd like stick his hand in the cage and if they bit at it he'd call it aggressive or whatever. Um over time the aggressive ones just got more responsive to people like aggressive and didn't want anything to do with them or would bite them. And then the docile ones started to get like their tails would wag. They'd be more happy to see people. They got spotted coats. Their ears flopped down. And it just seems like the more you select for kindness, the more juvenile they look.

[00:22:41]Like cuz fox puppies look like that.

[00:22:43]Their coats change color, but it stays with them as they get older.

[00:22:47]>> Yeah. Interesting. So is it kind of a combination of factors?

[00:22:51]>> Yes, I would say so.

[00:22:52]>> Yeah. And and much like selecting for seeds that were bigger and tasted better which turned into corn or you know wheat, I think the same thing happened with them. It's like oh these cows are cuter and therefore they'll give us more food later on or something like that.

[00:23:05]Yeah.

[00:23:06]>> Yeah. And they'll be easier to control.

[00:23:08]>> Yes. Mainly.

[00:23:10]>> Interesting. Interesting. Well, we probably shouldn't talk about this, but where but where do where do cats come in?

[00:23:17]>> Oh, I see why. Um yeah, I would love to learn more about cats as much as I could. I I joke that I don't like them, but I do. Um >> I think everybody loves cats as well, deep down.

[00:23:28]>> Yeah, >> people. They're a dog person, but they'll they'll still >> We I think we just we like cats as humans. I think there's something there's something in dogs and cats that I think just humans intrinsically are drawn to. I don't know what it is.

[00:23:40]>> Yeah.

[00:23:41]>> Don't know if that's just me being woo woo, but >> No, no. I think I think you're right.

[00:23:46]>> Condition somewhere.

[00:23:47]Cats might much like dogs are apex carnivores in their in carnivora um in that like that order like we're primates in the order primates but um carnivoreans like we have two every other animal we have domesticated is an unulate or a rabbit or a guinea pigs or something um or fowl but like the only domestic predators we have are dogs and cats and it's Because to be an effective social predator, you have to be social.

[00:24:20]Um, and dogs and wolves quickly or wolves and dogs quickly picked up on human social cues. Um, and you can talk to each other with, you know, food being the language. Uh, with cats, it just seems like, and it's interesting, there's not a lot of like written research on this that I've noticed. like it just is kind of presumed, but they just appear around agricultural settlements or settlements where humans have more excess grain, uh, which attracts more rats and then cats want to come eat that. So, it's debated are they domesticated or not. I'd say like with the Sphinx cat that's hairless or like the Siamese cat, like they're clearly bred to look that way. But like an African wild cat looks just like a house cat. It's just a little more feral. And cats when they leave the house can immediately just go hunt and live on their own for years pretty well.

[00:25:13]Um like they completely destroyed Australia's ecosystem, but like they're they're pretty efficient at it. But um >> every ecosystem that humans every island that humans have ever gone to, right, cats come in and just wreck everything.

[00:25:29]>> Uh I'm not sure about every island, but the ones that I know of, yeah, it seems to be the case. I think it was the the Pacific Islands when Cook got there. I think eventually some cats got there and they sort of just messed everything up.

[00:25:40]>> That would make sense. Yeah. And that's funny, too, because a lot of people think Cook brought rats to Polynesia, but they actually the Polynesians brought rats with them everywhere because they hung out on the boats, too.

[00:25:51]>> Um, >> but yeah, then he got there now as well.

[00:25:55]>> They did. Um, in fact, they I'm making a video on this, but every time Cook went to I can get back to cats. Went to a new island in Polynia, they offered him a dog and he was like, I don't want why.

[00:26:08]And then uh then after like a W cuz it's so interesting. He had such like a open mind in many ways, but other ways it was very narrow because of the time.

[00:26:16]>> But he was like, I guess I'll try the dog. And then he ate it and it must be a delicacy. And he's like, it's pretty good. And then he just kept eating the dogs. Uh but they wouldn't give the chickens or pigs cuz they needed those for food, but dogs was like more of a please have this kind of thing. Um and then he he couldn't figure out why they kept stealing out of his boat. It's like well when you show up on shore, you know, they can pick what they want. Uh but um yeah, so with cats, it's like they just seem to appear around human settlements. They're eating the rats and they just like I think meowing I've heard this anecdotally is more only done around people. They don't really do it with themselves in the wild. So it's like they just can exploit human sociality and do the cute puppy dog kitty face to us and we'll feed them and all that.

[00:27:06]>> Yeah.

[00:27:07]>> Yeah.

[00:27:07]>> The meow sometimes sounds like a baby crying.

[00:27:10]>> Yeah, I guess you could argue that. I I never thought about that.

[00:27:14]>> Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if that's a a thing that anyone talks about, but it's something I've noticed myself, but I don't know. Cats are did they design do they do that by design to get humans to feed them?

[00:27:26]>> It's a good question for the comments. I I I I don't know. Um I do know like most domestication books like it'll they'll mention dogs as the main one and then all the agricultural stuff and horses.

[00:27:37]Cats are just never mentioned.

[00:27:38]>> Cats are later than dogs then.

[00:27:40]>> Yeah, cats are probably 10,000 8,000 years later. Cats is an interesting one.

[00:27:46]Yeah. So, there's a good argument that they're not actually domesticated, right? Or maybe there's not a good argument, but there's an argument.

[00:27:52]>> Yeah, that would be my argument. Uh I I joked about it in my lecture that I have on my YouTube and this guy from the New York Times emailed me and was like, "Hey, loved the lecture, blah, blah, blah." And then like sent me a bunch of stuff. He's like, "I have written articles though on why cats are domesticated and like sent me like three links and I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay."

[00:28:10]But uh people don't cat people don't like being told that. Uh which is funny.

[00:28:15]Um but yeah, I don't know. Like they seem I think on paper they're domesticated, but they're not like there's no diversity in cats like there is like Chihuahua and Great Danes to me.

[00:28:27]So I think that's what throws me off.

[00:28:29]But genetically and archaeologically they do seem to be domesticated.

[00:28:33]>> It seems like just on the face of it, they haven't fully given themselves to humans. But probably genetically they have. Do I mean do we know can we see the differences in DNA from sort of wild ancestral cats and modern cats?

[00:28:47]>> I would be talking out of my ass if I gave you a proper answer on that, but I I do believe I've read on that that yes, like you can see there's a PBS Eons video on cat domestication that I think kind of answers that. I just can't recall what it was in there because I'm a dog guy. But >> what about what about Let's move back to dogs. What about dogs? Can you tell the difference between modern DNA of dogs and ancestral DNA? Like is there a and genetics is there like a difference?

[00:29:17]>> Um is it more um like scal?

[00:29:22]>> Yeah. Uh I've never heard someone say that. The British accental scal.

[00:29:27]>> There you go. Um where you from in Britain by the way?

[00:29:30]>> Uh I'm from Birmingham.

[00:29:32]>> Okay.

[00:29:33]>> I live in Nottingham. So I'm very much Midlands, the Kingdom of Mercia. I know like the Yorkshire accent versus London, but in the middle I'm like kind of >> So, we border Yorkshire is above us.

[00:29:45]>> Okay.

[00:29:46]>> You've got Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and then the South.

[00:29:52]>> Okay. [laughter] >> Gotcha.

[00:29:54]>> I like I I try to pick it out more, but All right. Cool. I like your accent, by the way. Um, >> a lot of people call me uh Yuan McGregor for some reason. That's a That's a weird a weird >> That's what it is. Cuz you're not Shawn Bean. That's too He's too much north.

[00:30:08]But you're >> Yeah, that's really good.

[00:30:11]>> For some reason, it's uh it's uh the negotiations were long. Master >> Oh, no. That's not even >> Master Cipher Diaz. Yeah. Um [laughter] uh >> yeah, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[00:30:24]>> Hell yeah. I like that. Um so, scalally, skeletaly. Um yeah, you can see dogs.

[00:30:31]That's why it's such a debate as to when they're domesticated because a dog's a dog is just a subspecies of the wolf, arguably the same species. So, evolution is not Pokemon. Like, you don't give something a stone or like level 34 and it evolves, you know? Um, and I I a moonstone. There you go. Which you can only find a mount moon, two of them in the whole game. Um, yeah. So, I think especially for people our age, like Pokemon did kind of obscure evolution in that sense because it seems so quick.

[00:31:04]>> Uh, and then for people who didn't play Pokemon, they don't aren't familiar with evolution at all. Um, you unless they, you know, learn it in school.

[00:31:11]>> But with that in mind, like it takes something a long time to change into a new species. So, and like you have to find like an old one and then a new one to see like what to do. So with dogs overnight, you're not going to tell. So like a Chihuahua now or even a village dog 4,000 years ago will look different than a wolf 20,000 years ago for sure.

[00:31:35]But like a husky or a big German Shepherd, they do look like a wolf except for their face has that, you know, neotness. It's more scrunched to look like a puppy than it is like with the wolf. Um so you can see that evidenced a long time ago like like is it a wolf? Is it a dog? and it starts to gradually change into dogs for the most part for history look like the dingo.

[00:31:58]Just a standard yellow wolflike looking dog. Um, and I'm getting away from what your original question was. Um, >> oh, we can go back to my original question that I was going to ask you about >> what dogs looked like for most of history. These German shepherds and things like this, have they re-evolved to look like a wolf? At one point, did they look like a dingo and now they've gone back to a wolf? or have they always looked more or less what they look like now?

[00:32:24]>> Yeah. Um like the default coat color for a dog is dingo colored for some reason that like when you look at their jeans that's the case.

[00:32:31]>> Interesting.

[00:32:32]>> Um so like the the wolflike gray seems to be like an arctic or not arctic but you know subarctic tundra thing. Um and then that goes away because if you look at village dogs in India or Africa they're kind of just tan like dingo color. Maybe not as golden as dingoes, but they're like tan. They look like that for most of history, especially Amarindian dogs. Uh, and then like there's some white in there, too. But like with a a German Shepherd, Yeah.

[00:33:01]It's like it was taken from a shepherd-like dog and then made to look more like a wolf to intimidate sheep and or, you know, well, other wolves and things like that come to attack the sheep. Um, the big Tibetan mastiffs and stuff like that are bigger than wolves in some senses. um the big Mongolian dogs too uh because they want to breed them to look at that. And then a husky or a malamute kind of has just retained that Arctic canine feature into now. And Greenland dogs, I think, still have the most amount of Amarindian DNA that wasn't replaced. Uh and they they're a good example of what dogs probably looked like way back in time. Um >> interesting.

[00:33:39]>> Okay. So, so they could be >> like an example of what a a Paleolithic dog might have looked like.

[00:33:48]>> Yeah, I I would argue that. Um, >> have they stayed more or less the same throughout history?

[00:33:56]>> Uh, I don't know exactly if that's the case, but I'd imagine so. If if anything, they're like I guess my reservation would be like they might be a little more robust >> now because they're bred for pulling sleds. Um but that color and that you know keeping >> cuz Inuit cultures in Ino Mcmock uh anyone in like Canada, Alaska area and probably Siberia as well that had sled dogs like sled dogs just stayed outside all night. Like they weren't ever let inside. Only one was usually allowed in and they were just >> they grow some long hair pretty quick.

[00:34:30]That's the case.

[00:34:31]>> Yeah. It's like their way of living out there. Yeah. Um, uh, the question you had that I went on a rant about Pokemon, I forget what that was, but, um, can you see it skeletally?

[00:34:43]>> Yeah. Or genetically. Yeah.

[00:34:44]>> So, over time, you do then start to see a distinct This is dog DNA versus wolf DNA, which is, you know, when you do your dog's 23me or whatever that thing is, dogs do the bark lab or something.

[00:34:58]Um, >> lab.

[00:34:59]>> Nice. I don't know what it's called, but uh you can see like, okay, I have a black lab versus a wolf. But if you were to like do, you know, if you're an alien scanning barcodes on species, you'd see like rat, eel, dog, and wolf would be the same thing. Like it's just, you know, the same animal.

[00:35:19]Eel is not probably the best example to give, but you know what I mean.

[00:35:23]>> Yeah. So there's really there's not much difference between a dog and a wolf.

[00:35:29]Not really. The only thing I have it on this camera here, but here's like here's a dog skull. Um, a wolf skull wouldn't have this curve here. I'll show it to the camera. It has like it's more flat like that. It goes straight down. And that's just that like scrunching it in to look more like a puppy. So, even wolf puppies have a skull like that, but it eventually grows longer as they get older. With dogs, that doesn't grow out.

[00:35:54]It stays puppy like, but when you look at it skeletally, you would think that's a different species than, you know, the wolf if it was an adult dog that look like this versus a wolf skull. I need to get a wolf skull. Um, but um it really is like the same thing as just there's just cells. It's called neural crest cells. And when you're in uterero, those don't express when you're a domestic animal. Like they don't your face doesn't grow up, but it should.

[00:36:22]everything like if that makes sense. So it's like just a >> phenotypical thing just like their ears flopping down but like with a shepherd they're bred to have their ears back up and whatnot. So >> oh that's another good word phenotypical what what does that mean?

[00:36:37]>> Uh so phenotype I can't I don't know what the Webster's definition would be but like phenotype is like visible characteristics that aren't genetic. Um, so something that affects you later on that's not like you know exactly coded into your body. Let me double check that pretty sure.

[00:36:58]>> So I mean that's a humans can >> can have this as well.

[00:37:03]>> Uh phenotype refers to the observable characteristics or traits of an organism including its physical appearance, development and behavior. Yeah. So like your behavior can isn't genetically determined that can change but it does influence it if that makes sense.

[00:37:17]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

[00:37:18]>> Yes.

[00:37:20]>> So, okay. So, we've got dingoes basically all over the world throughout most of history.

[00:37:26]>> At what point do humans start changing?

[00:37:29]I mean, so they're dingo like is that because they're like a jack of all trades? They do a bit of everything.

[00:37:35]It's a good question.

[00:37:37]The way I would phrase it is like the dingo is a village dog type thing that followed humans down to Australia and eventually you know just got in a boat came with humans at some point but Aboriginal people had been there forever >> um or you know 50,000 years or so. Dingo genetically about 10,000 years should should appear. I think the earliest dingo remains are about 4,000 years old.

[00:38:00]But the dingo as an example of that that question gets to a continent where there's no other apex predator like that besides the thyloine which is a little smaller and more slender. So this wolflike creature that's a little more, you know, domesticated gets there has an entire continent of kangaroos to just go wild and hunt. Uh and it reverts back to that wolflike state or like a feral dog and that's what a dingo is.

[00:38:27]>> Um and has the ability to do that. So the the dingo and the new guinea singing dog in that sense they look similar. Um are like what like a default dog mode would be in like their genes. So like and Amarindian dogs from the Spanish and French accounts seem to look the same but they're all gone now.

[00:38:47]>> Oh, they're all they're all gone. All of the Amarindian dogs are gone. Yeah, there's a lot of um so Greenland dogs are the have the most old DNA and then Chihuahua and Charlotte have obviously like Amarindian DNA in them but they've been so muddled by European and Asian dog DNA uh after colonization that like essentially like the Chihuahua was bred it's so diluted but it's kept its Chihuahua phenotype if that makes sense or it Chihuahua shape but it has European DNA. So even even the dogs will colonize us.

[00:39:23]>> Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of interesting stuff there with that too because it's like >> I don't think the Spanish got off their boats and were like kill all the dogs or they weren't like >> have sex with all these dog have their dogs have sex with the other dogs. But um >> fair to them they they didn't get off the boats and say let's kill all the natives. It's just what happened.

[00:39:42]>> What happened? Yeah. So if you imagine like the Spanish meeting the Tyino in, you know, Jamaica or the Bahamas and they had dogs, you can't stop the Spanish mastiffs from like sneaking off and Yeah. So it wasn't like >> these are big dogs.

[00:39:56]>> Interesting.

[00:39:57]>> Yeah. Big big war dogs. Um either eating those dogs, but I just meant, you know, having >> they were they ate enough people, so they were probably eating the dogs, too.

[00:40:09]>> That's a good point. I don't know any >> I might look into that. It's a good question.

[00:40:13]>> Good old Christopher Columbus had a had a had a thing for feeding people to dogs.

[00:40:18]>> Uh what's his name too? Um >> D Gama. No, not Dama. That's a different guy. Um the guy who went through most of the southeastern United States. U Dodto.

[00:40:29]>> That was like that [snorts] was his thing. He >> was his thing too. Yeah.

[00:40:33]>> Yeah.

[00:40:33]>> It worked. What is scarier than being eaten by a dog? Like that's >> pretty bad.

[00:40:39]>> Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's pretty bad.

[00:40:41]It's pretty bad. And I mean, yeah, considering these the Native Americans had uh dingo like dogs, they wouldn't have seen >> these European ones before. So, it's like a monster.

[00:40:51]>> Yeah, that's a good point, too. I didn't even think about that. It's just something completely different.

[00:40:55]>> Horrendous monster. I mean, it doesn't even look like a dog to them.

[00:40:58]>> Yeah, cuz the dogs in in Mexico were the hairless, toothless, like some teeth were missing.

[00:41:04]>> Uh the showless Quintley's and they weren't bred for war. They were like sacrificial family dogs and stuff. But Cortez for sure had war dogs at the siege of Tinoitlan and like they had armor and like everything which is like it must have been crazy because they never had dogs for that.

[00:41:20]>> Imagine a dog in armor.

[00:41:22]>> It's one of those things where it's like the context of it is rough but it's another like I see a dog in armor I probably will say hell yeah. Like it's kind of cool [laughter] looking.

[00:41:30]The context is not good. Um but uh >> I'll make a clip of that out of context.

[00:41:36][laughter] >> There you go. Left that on my profile.

[00:41:39]Um, but plains tribes here like in Wyoming and and um Nebraska and Kansas, they and the Dakotas and Montana had dogs that were bred for pulling like travoy is what they're called. So like the two poles on the back. Um, and they would interbreed them with wolves to be stronger and they'd like file their teeth down which is also crazy to me.

[00:42:00]>> So they were what? Like pulling little carts. Um it's like since they didn't have the wheel, they had um like it's like two poles they tie to the back and the poles, you've probably seen native images of like horses with them too, >> but it's like two big long poles that just drag behind the animal and they can tie like with netting like bags and stuff to it, >> but dogs use that forever.

[00:42:24]>> And then when the horse came around, they were like, "Oh, we'll just do that." And like the a lot of cultures called horses big dogs for that reason because they've never seen it.

[00:42:33]interesting.

[00:42:33]>> Um or big deer, >> horses, layers.

[00:42:37]>> Yeah.

[00:42:38]>> Many thousands of years later.

[00:42:40]>> Super fascinating. And they're from here, too. So, they just immediately took over the environment just fine because that's where they're from.

[00:42:46]>> Yeah. Horses were in the Americas like hundreds of thousands of years ago, right?

[00:42:52]>> Yeah. They died out. Um like people hunt hunted them here when they got here. Uh, and then they they died out from, you know, whatever the climate change, the over hunting, whatever you want to say.

[00:43:03]>> The late place megapora extinction event.

[00:43:07]>> Yep. There you go. We We'll call it that.

[00:43:09]>> Is that uh >> Do you Do you subscribe to that?

[00:43:12]>> I don't know if it was the comet. I I I know that's or the meteor.

[00:43:16]>> Yeah. No, no, I'm not talking about the comet. I just mean I think there's the there's the idea that as soon as humans arrived, we kind of just killed everything.

[00:43:26]Yeah.

[00:43:26]>> That is that an old view or is that >> it's old and it's also like being I see some people still doing it. I I subscribe to it's a combination of everything.

[00:43:37]>> Yeah.

[00:43:38]>> But it does seem >> when humans appear somewhere >> all the animals die. It's like New Zealand, Australia, uh Madagascar.

[00:43:48]>> Wildly different times in history as well. Separated by thousands of years.

[00:43:52]>> Yeah. So it wasn't just the ice age that killed them all. And like Cuba had big grounds lost too until 4,000 years ago when the tyino got there and then they all died. So it's just like uh it is interesting. But I don't think I think what the the confusion is is people think that humans like hunted down every single last mammoth and killed them like it was like you know an army.

[00:44:13]>> Uh but really it's just like >> it takes 22 months to grow a mammoth in the uterus. So it's like what it's like gestation to gestate a mammoth. So, if you're killing the bulls and the population can't recover and the climate's drastically changing, it's not going to help.

[00:44:30]>> Um, >> and ecosystems tend to be quite fragile when you're taking out a massive food source.

[00:44:36]>> Exactly. With smaller animals moving further north and stuff. Yeah. So, that that's my take. Um, and then the other thing too with that is if you're if humans did bring dogs into the Americas with them at that time before everything went extinct, you then have this really efficient way of you're protected at night. You can bark when there's saber-tooth cats coming up or whatever.

[00:44:58]Um, you can watch how the dogs hunt something before you do it to know it's safe or how they'd go about it. Watch wolves do it. But another thing is interesting too is like not that rabies was a thing. We don't know that.

[00:45:11]But if humans and wolves came into this continent to that hadn't seen humans or like domestic wolves before from the other side of the world, what if they had some kind of disease leg, you know, and that spread quickly with dogs hunting other animals and things? I I don't know, but that's something to think about too, like as another factor as to why everything died.

[00:45:32]>> Yeah. I mean, disease is something that has been spoken about more recently in kind of like the end of the Neolithic in Europe, for example. And there's an idea that if there's a big population change, >> like a new group comes in, the old group seems to mostly die out. That doesn't happen out of nowhere. So there may >> disease going on.

[00:45:52]>> That's a that's a really good point. Um the paper is called um man's best friend, mammoth's worst enemy, if anyone wants to read it. But he he does propose like with some computer modeling how it could happen. Um, >> would I like to see a mammoth with rabies? Kind of. Uh, but [laughter] >> you imagine >> be kind of a scary thought, but or something like that, you know?

[00:46:13]>> That's a that's a good film that needs to be made.

[00:46:17]>> Rabbid Mammoth.

[00:46:18]>> That'd be so sick. And it has like a v vendetta against a group >> like a a prehistoric cocaine bear.

[00:46:25]>> Yes. I was trying to think of that.

[00:46:26]That's [laughter] some movie like that. Yeah. Or Shark NATO. Um, >> NATO. Oh, yeah.

[00:46:31]>> Cocaine Bear is crazy.

[00:46:32]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:33]>> Uh I I got away from your your question there, but um yeah, Emiranian dogs replaced by >> like I don't think it was a prescribed thing by the Pope to do it. It just happened.

[00:46:43]>> Yeah.

[00:46:43]>> Um and then >> yeah, the plains tribes had the like the Oh, right. the intermixing of like wolf dogs and stuff. So there were different dogs for different tasks all over the place in the Americas, too. But um just like the old world. Yeah.

[00:46:56]>> So there were different dogs for different tasks in pre-Colombian times.

[00:47:01]>> Oh yeah.

[00:47:02]>> Yeah. I mean, is this when this is when agriculture begins? I suppose they get put in they get put into like specific roles.

[00:47:08]>> Yeah, I I'd imagine like a lot more dogs get spread around with agriculture like when maze comes comes out of Central America.

[00:47:15]>> Yeah.

[00:47:16]>> Into North America, but I know like the Irakcoyan tribes in New York and Canada had dogs. They had like dog sacrifices.

[00:47:24]They had like it's part of their mythology and their creation story has dogs in it. See, like the the south the southwest, they definitely had dogs and like there's a lot of coyote mythology too and intermixing with coyotes. Um, Mexico had a distinct multiple types of dogs. Um, but there was like a lot of ritual purposes. The planes had dogs for pulling things. And then in the southeast with your agriculture question there, like especially in Tennessee, uh, or St. Louis or not St. Missouri.

[00:47:54]Anything along the Mississippi River with the Mississippian cultures kind of sprung out of there's a lot of dogs like just buried in mitten piles eaten a lot.

[00:48:03]I think the most dog burials in the world or in the Americas come from Vancouver Island if I'm not mistaken.

[00:48:09]But there's I'd say equal amount in the southeast from just from what I've read.

[00:48:14]They're just all over the place. And now it's like dogs might be considered part of like you can't dig up indigenous burials here because of you know laws and stuff like that. Yeah. But dogs are now included in that too because they're they're buried with reverence and stuff like that. So >> I can't put pictures of like a dog burial for like spiritual purposes and stuff. Um >> which is it's cool because I as much as I'd like to post the pictures and talk about it, it's like I also would argue that dogs are that you know intrinsic to native society. So I would respect it.

[00:48:44]Um, but yeah, they're they're just everywhere. Like every site has a dog in the southeast. It's great. And they were used for food. They were used for hunting and for they'd wear backpacks and stuff.

[00:48:56]>> Interesting.

[00:48:56]>> They'd wear backpacks.

[00:48:58]>> Yeah. Like to carry like um >> stone or water or shellfish and stuff when they're collecting them. In the outskirts of Cahokia, I know that there was one outlying settlement where the people living there were not elites, let's say, and I think their diets were mostly dog.

[00:49:17]>> Oh, cool.

[00:49:17]>> And they were quite not doing very well, let's say. And they were a bit malnourished. And basically, it's the idea is all they had to eat was dogs and then like a little bit of scraps and things like this.

[00:49:27]>> Yeah.

[00:49:28]>> I find that interesting because it's not all >> nothing about that.

[00:49:31]>> Not all not all dogs are revered. Some >> Yeah. Some of them are just food.

[00:49:36]>> Yeah. No, I I think for most of history that's kind of how they were >> seen and it's just like it it they do have the utilitarian purposes of like hunting, helping with that, but they're also in every survival movie. They eat the dog or the horse first before each other. So, >> it seems like there's a there's a hierarchy of dogs almost like sometimes you could get a dog that was revered. Is that would that be fair to say or >> um I think it's circumstantial. Yeah.

[00:50:03]>> Um but yeah, it it does seem like it's both in a lot in most places in the world. For instance, with the I I want to say it's the Enoch. Um they their mythology like I saying that their sled dogs stayed outside and they couldn't eat anything but like fish because it would be offensive to caribou or moose or whale for dogs to chew on their bones because they're traitors to animals. Um, but in that society, they'd let one dog in the the I want to say it's an igloo, but that's more like way inu. It's it's a type of snow dwelling like that.

[00:50:39]They'd let one dog in the house and that dog was given a name and therefore it was a word of the soul with that sense, but the rest of the dogs are outside just eating fish in the snow. Um, so it's like even in that society there's like a utilitarian dog that's like just a tool, but then there's the family dog inside. So, it's just circumstantial.

[00:51:01]Um, and in Polynesia as well, like they're eaten quite a bit, but they're also utilitarian and family animals at the same time. So, >> so interesting. So, you'd have one dog that's got a name >> in that society. Yeah. And I'd imagine that's common.

[00:51:15]>> Everyone else is outside.

[00:51:17]>> Yeah. And it's kind of the way we have like we care about our dog more than anything, but if another dog like I should say if another dog gets hit by a car, you don't care. you do care, but it's just like if you saw it, but like you're like, "Oh, that sucks." But yeah, um >> I'm just thinking I mean, yeah, it there are certain societies where you would get an occasional dog, like a family dog in a in an elite society, like a king's dog, which is much more revered than all of his subjects.

[00:51:45]>> Yeah, that's a good point, too.

[00:51:47]>> So, I don't know if that maybe occasionally that would happen in the Americas. I don't know. In the Aztecs and things, I don't know, like Montuma's dog. That's a good point, too. I never really thought about that because like the Maktazuma's dog would probably have way more social status than, you know, the slave cast in Tedoshi's Landon.

[00:52:05]Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:52:07]>> That's that's a lucky dog.

[00:52:10]>> Yeah, very much so. Yeah, Monizuma had a or Moxuma had a had a zoo in his palace, like a managerie. It's super cool.

[00:52:16]>> I love that.

[00:52:18]>> Um, super super cool city.

[00:52:21]>> Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. What would have been what would have been in there?

[00:52:25]>> Dogs. Lots of dogs.

[00:52:26]>> Jaguars, birds. Um, probably like an arvar or not arvar. What are those things called?

[00:52:32]>> Yeah.

[00:52:33]>> Tape.

[00:52:33]>> Tape. Yeah. Yeah. Some There's some wild animals in Mexico. Like some really cool ones.

[00:52:38]>> Yeah.

[00:52:38]>> Tape is super interesting.

[00:52:40]>> Turkeys. Um, is it that?

[00:52:42]>> Yeah. Which turkey comes from Mexico. I always forget about that. It seems like a >> pilgrims and Indians kind of dish, but it it's Mexican.

[00:52:52]>> Um. Turkeys were m native to the Americas then. That right?

[00:52:55]>> Yeah. Uh the south southwestern tribes or cultures domesticated turkeys as well as the Mexicans.

[00:53:04]>> Um but they kind of just turkeys are wild turkeys live all over the US. But the the domestic kind that come from there have just invaded all over.

[00:53:14]>> That's a good animal to domesticate.

[00:53:15]There's quite a lot of meat on a turkey.

[00:53:17]>> Yeah. And that's why it's interesting there's not a lot of turkey and like Mexican food. It's like from there, at least that I know of. When I learned that, I did make turkey with like avocado and like tomatoes just to see if it tasted and I was like, it tastes fine. But >> yeah, turkeys, llamas, and then guinea pigs are like the other and the guinea pigs are domesticated like rabbits are like you just keep them in little cages and but they were eaten in I want to say Peru.

[00:53:42]>> Yeah, that's definitely Peru. I'd love it. I'd love it if there were guinea pigs and llamas in uh McKazuma's Managerie, but I don't know. I'd hope so. I'd hope so. I would hope so. It's quite >> because they had potatoes from and tomatoes come from South America, too.

[00:53:57]Or no, they come from Central. So, >> yeah, potatoes traveled quite a long distance.

[00:54:02]>> Yeah, I'd say like not to get sappy on potatoes, but like they fundamentally changed the course of like human history and population is like much as like horses or dogs have in a way. It's just like >> big time.

[00:54:15]>> That all comes from the Americas. Yeah, it's kind of cool. A lot of people would associate the potato with Ireland, but they only arrived in Ireland in what 1500s, 1600s.

[00:54:26]>> Yeah.

[00:54:27]>> Before that, what did we have? Turnips.

[00:54:29]Not much else.

[00:54:31]>> Apples, too. I learned I thought those were like a medieval Europe because I played Stronghold as a kid. So, like >> Yeah, >> they had you had apple orchards. I was like, "Oh, they're English." And then I realized they're from like China.

[00:54:40]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know that very early apples were in kind of like the Kazakhstan area.

[00:54:44]>> Oh, wow. I don't know if that's where they came from originally, but yeah, we're talking thousands of years ago, but then they didn't arrive into into Europe until much later.

[00:54:53]>> Interesting.

[00:54:54]>> The Romans were quite the movers of goods. So like a lot of things came with the Romans.

[00:54:59]>> That would make sense. Yeah.

[00:55:01]>> Like their roads and everything.

[00:55:02]>> Yeah. Yeah. Rabbits and things like this the Romans moved around.

[00:55:05]>> Oh, really?

[00:55:07]>> Okay. Because I associate Roman food with like fish probably more than fish and bread. Yeah. But I guess they had hard tac and cheese and stuff, too.

[00:55:14]Yeah.

[00:55:14]>> Yeah. It was It's a strange diet. They'd have a lot of like fish sauce >> like garam, right?

[00:55:19]>> Fish sauce on everything. Yeah.

[00:55:20]>> Um, has anyone ever asked you questions on these on these podcasts yet?

[00:55:25]>> Not yet. Not yet.

[00:55:26]>> Uh, I was going to ask you like what I should just have you on my show, but like what what got you into this? And like you're you're like prolific YouTuber by the way.

[00:55:34]>> So, thanks man. Um, >> yeah.

[00:55:37]>> What got me into it? Well, I've always been fascinated by history for as long as I can remember. So I studied it at uni and then finished uni, did my masters, finished that.

[00:55:48]>> Basically just wanted to go out into the world, do a bit of traveling, see the world a bit. And then it was always my idea to eventually go back and do a PhD.

[00:55:56]But >> yeah, same.

[00:55:57]>> Here I am instead.

[00:56:00]>> Yeah.

[00:56:00]>> So I mean basically I started writing about history and um it was just one thing led to another and then >> right >> started making videos from them at some point. It's kind of that's >> ex exactly what happened with me. Yeah, >> that's what happened to you as well.

[00:56:13]Yeah. But well, you are doing are you doing your PhD?

[00:56:16]>> No, not yet. I'd like to at some point.

[00:56:18]>> Um I just I'm doing what I want to do with it now. So I just don't need to do another four years. But the the title would be cool.

[00:56:26]>> I'm in the same boat. I've toyed with it for the last five, six years to be honest. I keep thinking, oh no, I'll do it next year. I'll do it next year. But I I know I'll get bored or sick of YouTube enough at one point to just be like, "All right, I go do this."

[00:56:38]>> Um, just for another challenge. But yeah, man, cuz your your videos are so like long, I'd say, but like just well researched and like the way you narrate it and it's just like I've fallen asleep to many of them, I should say. But it's like you >> nice >> the way like I can just tell you like sit there with a script that's really well researched and like yeah it's a lot of work. I don't think people realize how much work especially what you're doing.

[00:57:06]>> Yeah, it's it's a lot of work but that's the side of it that I love. So I absolutely the research by far the best bit >> when I'm when I'm stuck in re I've got 10 books on the go. I've got my uh tablet filled with articles, reading through them. That's that's heaven. Then comes the writing, which is the writing is good. I like the writing. Then comes the editing, which is less good.

[00:57:34]>> And then comes the turning it into a video, which is probably the worst bit, >> but then it's done and it's out there.

[00:57:42]>> And then I can start on the next research bit. So, it's always the research that keeps me going because I'm always wanting to go on to the next project.

[00:57:50]>> Yeah.

[00:57:50]>> So, I'll get stuck in a video for like a month working on it and it's like a war zone.

[00:57:57]>> Yeah.

[00:57:58]>> And I'm just working on it like from when I wake up to when I go to sleep every day and I try and change my environment. Like sometimes I'll go work in a coffee shop, sometimes I'm at home, sometimes I'm wherever. I'll try and change my environment just I'm always doing these tricks to try and like be able to be more productive.

[00:58:14]>> But yeah, it's hard work. But the best bit and the thing that keeps me going is the research >> cuz it's just human human history. It's it's the greatest thing. It's the greatest thing we have. The fact that we have so much information is just incredible. Like pe people don't >> think about it, but we are in a golden age of information. We have more information than anyone has ever had ever. And that's pretty awesome. I love that.

[00:58:38]>> Yeah, I know. I know what you mean, man.

[00:58:40]Like one, I Yeah, it's insane how much info we have at our fingertips at any moment. Like even as a kid, I couldn't like just look up something that quick.

[00:58:48]I had to wait for the dialup to work and all that.

[00:58:51]>> We actually the uh the uh encyclopedia books. So, I'm old enough. I was born in 1990. So, we had like in the 90s the actual books. So, I would spend hours just >> All right, let's look at C. All right.

[00:59:04]What's under that?

[00:59:05]>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's look at K and [laughter] just go through just go through the list.

[00:59:10]>> Kings, kangaroos. Yeah, >> like >> I'm [clears throat] 92, so yeah, right right there with you. But um >> yeah, man. The research part it's like I I read something or I have something especially with dogs that I want to talk about and then I'll read it and I'm like that's so cool. Like Cook eight dogs, what? And then like I want to like write a video on that, but then I got to get like a bunch of other sources and like you know, how do I frame this as a video? And it's like a lot of work. a lot of work. It's a lot of work, >> but the research is the cool part.

[00:59:39]>> It's it's it's rewarding.

[00:59:40]>> Yeah, man. Um >> Well, I didn't mean to take over your podcast by asking you questions, but [laughter] >> we can maybe um just finish on I've I've got I've mentioned the Bronze Age. Um, so at this time in the Bronze Age when like you could say kings are becoming a thing, cities are becoming a thing, agriculture, settled civilization in Eurasia, what was happening with dogs? I mean, is it similar to the uh Americas?

[01:00:11]Like is are there many different types of dogs filling different niches?

[01:00:15]>> That's a wonderful question that I have no answer to. like I kind of >> nice >> my knowledge kind of ends at the Neolithic and then picks up again at like with Rome and Greece.

[01:00:25]>> So let's talk about the Neolithic.

[01:00:27][clears throat] >> Yeah. I I mean I'd love to put a pin in that and learn more about it. I'll go back to you. But um yeah, the Neolithic I guess by extent into the Bronze Age would be just like people are now in more settled like you know they're not moving around the landscape. They're not hunter gatherers anymore with dogs doing hunting. So dogs then help protect livestock. They help, you know, herd livestock. that you there's specific people that are hunting and stuff now with dogs and they're being you can see this skeletally scaly however you said it >> um skeletaly being bred for you know division of labor like there's there's more specialized breeds at this time and you do see that in China the Mediterranean the Levant um a lot of it comes from the Levant actually because I mean just a lot of archaeology there >> and then um the same thing mirrored in the Americas like the Neolithic with Mississippians it spreads all over.

[01:01:20]>> So there are sheep dogs.

[01:01:24]>> Uh yeah, to my understanding, and this could just be my theory, but it just makes educated guess sense that when you if dogs the first domestic animal and then like you have goats, sheep, pigs, cows all being domesticated at the same time, dogs have to be helping with that because you're >> dogs are helping with the looking after the animals and Yeah. Well, that and you're you're hacking their brains into thinking they're being attacked by a wolf and like [snorts] you know how a herd moves when it's being attacked by a wolf. So then they'd exploit that and use dogs to like move them into pens and things like that.

[01:02:00]>> Oh, that's interesting. So there's an argument maybe that domestication of cows, pigs, goats, things like this maybe wouldn't have happened without dogs.

[01:02:09]It would be hard for me to argue against that >> because it seems like anywhere where they had domesticated livestock like that, dogs were there.

[01:02:18]>> Yeah.

[01:02:18]>> So, it was helping or they at least knew how herds moved when they were being attacked by a wolf or a jackal or something >> and exploited that th those movements because people are so in tune with nature at the time. Um, I don't know if that helps with the llama or the alpaca.

[01:02:35]I'll have to look that up to prove that theory. That's a good thing to put opinion as well. But in the near east, it seems like because there's an abundance of dogs there at the time, that would be what they're doing. Or if that didn't happen, they at least had dogs there to once they were herded and domesticated to keep them in line like we do now, you know. So, and to answer your Bronze Age question, it's that just times 10. I probably Yeah. with more.

[01:03:01]>> I mean, to be honest, Bronze Age and Neolithic are fairly similar in some in some ways. They're both >> just different tools. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:08]It's like the agricultural base is there.

[01:03:11]>> Yeah. Just the tools are different and then it's like redistribution of power is kind of what happens.

[01:03:16]>> Yeah.

[01:03:16]>> Neolithic is a possibly sometimes a bit egalitarian and then by the Bronze Age it's sort of not.

[01:03:23]>> Troy is considered Bronze Age time.

[01:03:25]Right.

[01:03:26]>> That's right. That's right. Yeah.

[01:03:27]>> Yeah. There's dogs in the Iliad. So that' be a good sort of something to look at as well.

[01:03:32]>> So there'd be I mean these sheep dogs would they be the same as hunting dogs?

[01:03:37]Or would there be specific hunting dogs bred like for the elites?

[01:03:42]>> Sheep dogs like like shepherds you mean?

[01:03:44]>> Yeah.

[01:03:44]>> I guess what a shepherd is. Shepherd. Um >> yeah. I think I know. I know. I had an answer to this like that is factual, but right now it just be me talking out of my ass. But like yes, they were specialized for certain things. you can see more robust dogs um and like more grassile ones and things like that which would indicate there's different types of dogs at the time. So I'd imagine they'd be doing different tasks and you do see especially like in more state level society dogs get a lot more abuse uh because they're being kicked and things like that.

[01:04:20]>> Um >> but it is also hard to determine you know they're being hurt by a boar or a cow or something that just stomped it when it's hurting versus a human. Yeah.

[01:04:29]>> Um but you do see like yeah specialization at that time. Um and Flint and I talked about this which one of his big things he likes to talk about is the the dog at this um one of the sites he worked at and you can see evidence of people feeding dogs scraps and like Greek pottery and things like that and like at at parties and stuff.

[01:04:47]So there were family dogs, there were working dogs and then like you can see that all skeletally. Yeah.

[01:04:54]>> So it's a mix. Interesting.

[01:04:56]>> Yeah.

[01:04:57]>> Interesting. What about who's the Egyptian the dogheaded god? Is it is Anubis a dogheaded god?

[01:05:03]>> Uh Anubis.

[01:05:05]>> Yeah, >> Anubis. Yeah. So, what's what's that about? Why is why is he doad? I mean, is there do we is this wild speculation?

[01:05:12]>> So, this is one I have researched thoroughly. Um >> was he a dog? Is he a jackal? Is he a fox? This one paper came out saying that he just is a cananid like in general.

[01:05:23]Um, and this is interesting in terms of dog mythology and dog all that. Like Anubis is the there's a million things I can say here, but he Anubis is the first god you meet when you die and he like takes you to meet the other gods. He like preps you for it.

[01:05:39]>> Yeah.

[01:05:39]>> Uh, and then he puts your heart on the scale or whatever. Um, but it's interesting that a dog like creature, whatever you want to call it. This paper I read said he's just an amalgamation.

[01:05:48]But this dog like creature judges your character when you die. So it's a it's a that's pretty cross-cultural with Mexican mythology too, Greek mythology with the three-headed dog. It seems before like, you know, world religions, were you a good person? Would a dog like you? Uh, is a good judge of character?

[01:06:07]And that seems to exemplify in these myths. Um but yeah, he takes you to meet the other gods and Osiris is like kind of nasty towards people apparently. Um but Anubis is like your friend. Um and in the same way as in Mexican mythology, a dog takes you across into Miklan or Miklan. Um like a dog is a psychop and it takes you from this world to the next world kind of thing. So it's like a familiar like dogs can kind of intermediate between the spirits and humans. Um and that's the >> the land of Yeah, in Mexican mythology and Egyptian.

[01:06:43]Um, and then in Greek mythology, the three-headed dog either, depending on the story, it's like Hades's dog or whatever his name is, um, Pluto's dog, keeps you in the underworld or keeps people from getting in.

[01:06:57]>> Like he doesn't, it guards it. Yeah. So, it's like dogs seem to in this our psyche have like this weird intermediary space between this world and the next or whatever. And that that's a very common myth. Um >> I wonder how far back that goes.

[01:07:14]>> You know, I don't know. Dan Davis has a video on it. I think like it's an Indo-Uropean mythology about dogs. Um >> shout out Dan Davis. Another great channel.

[01:07:22]>> Yeah, he's great. Um but with with the domestication theories and the processes of that and with Anubis, there's a lot of jackals in Egypt, which are wolves technically, but they scavenge tombs and stuff like that, which is where I think Anubis comes from. Okay. So, they're assoc they would hang around the dead.

[01:07:40]>> The dead. Yeah. And when you die or I'm sorry, Anubis is the first to mummify somebody whichever I think it's Osiris.

[01:07:48]He gets chopped up into a million pieces by set. Um, and then Osiris is all sad.

[01:07:54]Uh, and Isis is sad. But whichever one it is, Anubis finds all the actually, sorry, she's sad because he his penis is gone. And then Anubis being a dog finds his penis and brings it back. Um that's the and they put him back together.

[01:08:09]>> Good dog.

[01:08:10]>> But yeah, good dog. But um he's the first to mummify somebody. So something to do with the with death. Um and I think that has to do with dogs scavenging bones or like graves and and like you always coyotes are kind of associated with like death and you know spookiness. Um, but yeah, dogs have this like interesting whether it's from them scavenging our camps at first, in our mind, they just scavenge bones and dead things. So therefore, they're associated with the dead. Um, super cool.

[01:08:40]>> Super interesting.

[01:08:41]>> That's a dissertation if someone wants it.

[01:08:44]>> Real quick, you mentioned Romans as well. So by the Roman era, >> what's the what's the relationship with dogs?

[01:08:51]>> Yeah. Have you been to Rome?

[01:08:53]>> Yes.

[01:08:54]>> Okay. There's if you've for anyone listening if you've been to Rome there's greyhound statues everywhere like they're and I was wondering is are greyhounds just easy to sculpt because they're kind of smoothhaired and kind of not hairless but really short-haired uh or what and then I looked it up Romans like if you were rich you could import a fancy Egyptian greyhound um or one from the Levant and like it was a status symbol >> so you had that but there There are other little dogs too all over the place like little Pomeranian type things um that you know there's there's tombs of them all over the place. There's little like epitaps written to them. There's dogs at Pompei >> and there are war dogs as well, right?

[01:09:38]>> Yeah. I just had a guy on talking about this the can can coro but the original version of it was like theian hound in Greece and then in Rome it was the kynis pugnax is what it's called and that was like a centurion like straight up war dog. You wouldn't want to mess with one of those guys.

[01:09:56]>> I would not. No, >> they would they would be kind of the predecessors of the dogs that like Cortez had.

[01:10:01]>> Yeah, I'd imagine.

[01:10:03]>> A Mediterranean war dog.

[01:10:05]>> Would they have remained more or less the same since the Roman times?

[01:10:09]>> The Spanish dogs that Cortez Columbus had, would they have remained kind of like that? Like, are they reminiscent of these Roman war dogs?

[01:10:16]>> That's a good point because I know Alexander had the meloian hound. They supposedly had one and there's statues of it at the British Museum, too. But um >> yeah, I think so. And I know I know about the Spanish war dogs from the perspective of the reconista. They use dogs there with the Moors >> in their war there. So I'd imagine if they were like a Iberian dog, it'd be similar to the Roman ones. They >> I'm thinking they they they went to war under, you know, like the Greeks and then they carried on at war for a long time.

[01:10:47]>> Yeah.

[01:10:48]>> Over a thousand years.

[01:10:49]>> Yeah. it's what they're for and not a >> lot of service for those guys.

[01:10:54]>> I I get asked a lot about dog behavior.

[01:10:55]I'm not a behaviorist or a vet, so I can't give it, you know, advice, >> but it does seem that dogs like are most happy when they're doing their task that they're bred for.

[01:11:05]>> Yeah.

[01:11:05]>> Um and unfortunately like war dogs is part of that.

[01:11:08]>> So like and when you think about like I wouldn't want a dog going to war if it's I don't want to get hurt, but like when you watch those like army Malininois doing their thing, like they love it.

[01:11:18]So, >> uh, >> yeah, >> it just makes sense. People would have exploited it back then.

[01:11:22]>> Yeah. Something about a job well done.

[01:11:25]>> Yeah.

[01:11:26]>> Right. Okay. It's been awesome talking to you, David.

[01:11:29]>> Yeah, man. This was great.

[01:11:31]>> Everybody check out his stuff. Go on his Instagram. Uh, you want to say anything real quick?

[01:11:36]>> Uh, yeah, Instagram is the biggest one.

[01:11:38]Ethnosology. Uh, and then everything else is David and How. You can find me through that, too. I got two podcasts.

[01:11:44]They're both here on YouTube. also Spotify, Apple, and then yeah, I'd love to have you on my show at some point.

[01:11:50]Talk more about history, nerd out.

[01:11:51]>> Love to do that. We can carry on the conversation.

[01:11:53]>> Absolutely, man. Yeah, this was a blast.

[01:11:55]I I don't really like talking to