Animals in History Roundup

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Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler, "How the Chicken Conquered the World: The epic begins 10,000 years ago in an Asian jungle and ends today in kitchens all over the world," Smithsonian Magazine (June 2012)

The chickens that saved Western civilization were discovered, according to legend, by the side of a road in Greece in the first decade of the fifth century B.C. The Athenian general Themistocles, on his way to confront the invading Persian forces, stopped to watch two cocks fighting and summoned his troops, saying: “Behold, these do not fight for their household gods, for the monuments of their ancestors, for glory, for liberty or the safety of their children, but only because one will not give way to the other.”>>>

"Modern dogs have 'little in common' with ancient breeds," BBC, May 21, 2012

The cross-breeding of dogs has made it difficult to trace the genetic roots of today's pets, according to a new study.

Scientists from Durham and Aberdeen analysed data from the genetic make-up of modern dogs while assessing the archaeological record of dog remains.

They found that modern breeds genetically have little in common with their ancient ancestors.>>>

"How to Build a Dog: Photo Essay," National Geographic (February 2012)

Scientists have found the secret recipe behind the spectacular variety of dog shapes and sizes, and it could help unravel the complexity of human genetic disease.>>>

Sarah C. P. Williams, "Whence the Domestic Horse?" Science, May 7, 2012

Shards of pottery with traces of mare's milk, mass gravesites for horses, and drawings of horses with plows and chariots:
These are some of the signs left by ancient people hinting at the importance of horses to their lives. But putting a place and date on the domestication of horses has been a challenge for archaeologists. Now, a team of geneticists studying modern breeds of the animal has assembled an evolutionary picture of its storied past. Horses, the scientists conclude, were first domesticated 6000 years ago in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, modern-day Ukraine and West Kazakhstan. And as the animals were domesticated, they were regularly interbred with wild horses, the researchers say.>>>

Jared Diamond, "What Makes Countries Rich or Poor?" New York Review of Books, June 7, 2012

. . . . Europe has had a long history (of up to nine thousand years) of agriculture based on the world’s most productive crops and domestic animals, both of which were domesticated in and introduced to Europe from the Fertile Crescent, the crescent-shaped region running from the Persian Gulf through southeastern Turkey to Upper Egypt. Agriculture in tropical Africa is only between 1,800 and 5,000 years old and based on less productive domesticated crops and imported animals.>>>

Animals in History Roundup

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James Hookway, "Historian Won't Let Scotland's Most Famous Dog Lie," Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2011

EDINBURGH, Scotland—To millions of people around the world, he's the loyal dog who kept a lonely vigil at his master's graveside.

Greyfriars Bobby, a Skye terrier, supposedly spent 14 years pining by the grave of his owner, a local known as Auld Jock who died in 1858. The tale of devotion has beguiled generations of visitors to Scotland's capital and inspired dozens of children's books and a 1961 Disney film, "Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of a Dog.">>>

"Humans are Hardwired to Respond to Animals," International Business Times, August 30, 2011

No matter how immersed we are in the high-tech modern world, a new study finds that the human brain is hardwired to respond to animals.

Animals have been an important source of both food and fear throughout human history, and they have helped to shape our evolutionary path. Years of running from and running after animals have apparently left a mark on the human brain - just looking at a photo of an animal jolts our brains into actions.>>>

Jonathan Jones, "Horses shaped our art of war and peace," Guardian, August 29, 2011

Horses throng the history of art. The most ancient paintings that are known, in Chauvet cave in France, feature herds of horses, and Mark Wallinger is keeping the equine dream alive in today's art even if he never does get the money for his giant horse at Ebbsfleet.

The Chauvet horses are wild animals, observed by ice-age artists among the mammoths and rhinos of a Europe abundant in beasts long gone today. But our artistic relationship with the horse has evolved alongside the animal's domestication.>>>

"Trip to the Zhou: Remains of horses and chariots unearthed from tomb dating back to 3,000-year-old Chinese dynasty," Daily Mail, September 2, 2011

It could have been as early as 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ that these horses were moved on to greener pastures - and no one has laid eyes on them until now.

Archaeologists have painstakingly uncovered the almost 3,000-year-old remains of horses and wooden chariots in a Zhou Dynasty tomb in Luoyang, Henan Province, China.>>>

Amina Khan, "New species of ancient rhinoceros found in Tibet," Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2011

Searching across the Tibetan plateau, paleontologists have discovered a species of woolly rhinoceros that may be an ancestor of the great ice age beasts that roamed the plains of North America, Europe and Asia.

The Coelodonta thibetana fossil dates to about 3.7 million years ago, about a million years before other known woolly rhinos.>>>

Dogs through Time

Randall Stephens

No other animal has been as shaped by humankind as Canis lupus, the gray wolf. There are now 400 different official breeds. They range in size from the itty-bitty Chihuahua, which can sit comfortably in a teacup, to the Mastiff, weighing in at well over 200 lbs.

And just how much has human history been shaped and altered by dogs, and domestic animals in general? Ancient grave sites are littered with animal bones. The domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago brought with it significant changes. Groups could settle and channel energies into new cultural pursuits. And since we first figured out how to keep cats around, use yeast to make intoxicants, and herd cattle, our lives have been caught up with the lives of animals.

A recent article in Der Spiegel, "The Pharoahs' Pups: Egyptian Bones Could Help Solve Canine Conundrum," looks into the roots of human-dog interaction. The earliest archeological evidence suggests that we've been linked closely to them for 14,000 years. Even more surprising: "Scholars believe that wolves first started to have peaceful interactions with Stone Age humans about 30,000 years ago."

"How did all of these various [dog] breeds develop?" asks the author in Der Spiegel.

Reliefs, grave paintings and statues indicate that the ancient Egyptians played a major role in this development. The first known depictions of dogs come from rock carvings along the Nile River dating back almost 5,000 years ago. Not long thereafter, the pharaohs were already hunting with slender greyhounds. A leashed dog with black-and-white spots that vaguely resembles a dalmation is painted on a sarcophagus from the 6th dynasty, or roughly 4,000 years back.

Around 1500 B.C., small, bowlegged mutts and lapdogs were already scurrying around the palaces of the pharaohs. Brawny hunting dogs were bred for the battlefield, and mastiffs imported from Assyria were crossed with the domestic breed. A bronze figure from the grave of King Tut strongly resembles a dachshund.>>>

For more on the amazing transformation of dogkind over the ages, and for a look at how humans have interacted with dogs, watch Nova's Dogs Decoded (2010) and The Science of Dogs (National Geographic, 2007) on Netflix. (Each is a "watch instantly" title.)

On a related note, check out this preview of Werner Herzog's new 3-D documentary, Caves of Forgotten Dreams, about a group of 32,000-year-old cave paintings of animals and humans in southern France.