Primitive Mammoth Hunters and the Earliest Breed of Dog

Abstract

Primitive man have managed to survive in the rigorous climatic conditions of the arctic regions in northeast Asia owing to the hunting for mammoth, bison, wooly rhinoceros and other Pleistocene mammals with the assistance of the laika, a domesticated wolf. This is how the colonization of the Arctic began. The domestic dog appeared in this region about 25 - 30 thousand years ago as a result of the severe climatic conditions in which both hunting tribes and the ancestors of the domestic dog had to live. A wolf is a predator, an able hunter. Therefore, most likely wolves were originally trained to hunt with humans—the leaders of the hunting pack. Thus, in northeast Asia, there was a direct relationship between man’s colonization of the Arctic, the appearance of the hunting dog, and a decrease in the number of mammoth, bison, and other large animals in the region, as a result of hunting when whole herds were killed.