Chapter One
Origins and Oddballs
If someone asked you where domestic dogs came from, the chances are you would say wolves, and you would be correct. Over the years scientists have argued about this question, saying maybe some came from coyotes or jackals, but these days it is clear that dogs derived exclusively from wolves, and almost surely from wolves who inhabited the huge Eurasian continent. The process of domestication could have taken place anywhere from some 15,000 years to more than 100,000 years ago, depending on which scientists you pay most attention to—geneticists or archaeologists—but never mind that for now. We'll get to it in a later chapter.
Let's start with wolves. First, where did they come from? That leads us to a time sixty or so million years ago, after the dinosaurs had vanished, leaving the field to the humble mammals. Some of these were ...
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