• DOI:10.1086/344372
• Corpus ID: 144574445

The Earliest Ice Age Dogs: Evidence from Eliseevichi 11

@article{Sablin2002TheEI,
  title={The Earliest Ice Age Dogs: Evidence from Eliseevichi 11},
  author={Mikhail V. Sablin and Gennady Khlopachev},
  journal={Current Anthropology},
  year={2002},
  volume={43},
  pages={795 - 799}
}

• M. Sablin, G. Khlopachev
• Published 1 December 2002
• Environmental Science
• Current Anthropology

Although some scientists have suggested that the first transformation from wolf to dog may have taken place more than 100,000 years ago (Vila et al. 1997), most archaeologists and palaeontologists believe that humans first tamed wolves before the end of the Pleistocene. The evidence of domestication has, however, been indirect (Benecke 1987). Fragments of bones of Canis lupus L. identified as early Holocene domestic dog have been reported from the Near East (Turnbull and Reed 1974, Davis and Valla 1978), central and northern Europe (Musil 1984, Nobis 1986, Street and Baales 1999), and Siberia (Pawlow 1930). No complete dog cranium has yet been found in a site earlier than 12,000 C years b.p. The finds we report here, from the Upper Paleolithic site Eliseevichi 1 (central Russian Plain, Bryansk Region), have been dated to 13,000–17,000 C years b.p. Eliseevichi 1 is situated in the basin of the Dnieper River, on the Sudost River (the right tributary of the Desna) (lat. 53 10 N, long. 33 40 E). The cultural layer is located on the second alluvial terrace of the Sudost in eolian-diluvial Upper Pleistocene deposits. A large number of bones of the mammoth Mammuthus primigenius Blum were found among the food debris at the site. Remains of Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus L.) and reindeer (Rangifer tarandus L.) were also common (Kuzmina and Sablin 1993). The assemblage of animal bones from Eliseevichi 1 is typical of a cold-tolerant Upper Pleistocene fauna. Climate change to extremely cold and dry by the final phase of the Late Valdai stage of the last glaciation brought about an increase in the number of tundra species of mammals and a decrease in the number of steppe species. Around 694 m of cultural deposits were excavated by the Russian scientists K. M. Polikarpovitch (in 1930–40),