This is certainly the day for “earlier than thoughts.”
Look on the bright side; it is way more interesting than Tales of the Tone Deaf, which predominated some short while back, about the prof-led move to Stamp Out Doubt.
From Rachael Lallensack at Nature:
The results, published on 18 July in Nature Communications1, push back against a controversial 2016 study2 that suggested dogs were domesticated twice. The latest analysis also add weight to previous research that moves the timing of domestication back as far as 40,000 years ago.
…
The researchers estimate that dogs and wolves diverged genetically between 36,900 and 41,500 years ago, and that eastern and western dogs split 17,500–23,900 years ago. Because domestication had to have happened between those events, the team puts it somewhere from 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.More.
Lot of space between those numbers, 20,000 and 40,000, but it sounds like good discussion to be in, compared to Stamp Out Doubt.
The thing about domestication is that it change the animal’s mind in a certain way. The changes in body can also be significant but a feral Doberman would really be as much of a problem or more of a problem than a wolf.
Domestication appears to have enabled animals to transfer to humans affections that would usually be directed at other animals of their species. But only some animals can do that. Much to learn.
See also: So why can we domesticate some animals but not most of them?
Humans occupied Australia much earlier than thought – researchers
Researchers suggest: Life began on land, not sea. And nearly 600 mya earlier than thought
and
Animal minds: In search of the minimal self