Hunde waren schon viel früher als gedacht der beste Freund des Menschen. Eine genetisch homogene Hundepopulation war bereits vor mindestens 14.300 Jahren in ganz Europa und Anatolien weit verbreitet, was darauf hindeutet, dass Hunde zwischen genetisch und kulturell unterschiedlichen Jäger- und Sammlerpopulationen im Westen Eurasiens aus dem Spätpaläolithikum ausgetauscht wurden.

Direct link to the Nature paper (open access): [Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10170-x).

I prefer to frame it as dogs domesticated us

I’d wager that hunter gatherer groups kept wolves for much much longer than we can prove genetically or archaeologically. Just like how now humans can catch birds of prey as chicks and use their instincts to hunt prey, but genetically they are 100% a wild species.

This would have happened for a very long time before in-breeding and cross breeding led to genetic traits we would consider of a dog. It would have been a several thousands of years long process as humans moved around Eurasia with their proto-dogs interbreeding and crossbreeding with wild wolves.