New Delhi: Man’s best friend has been by our side for far longer than previously thought. A new study shows that the enduring bond between humans and dogs stretches back at least 15,000 years, research shows the duo travelling together across Europe.
Published in the science journal, Nature, the study draws on one of the largest datasets of its kind, analysing 216 ancient dog and wolf genomes from sites across Europe and nearby regions. The study titled ‘Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic,’ establishes that dogs were not just widespread but also travelled with humans and evolved dramatically over time.
“Dogs were the only domesticated animal to predate farming, so their evolution can help us understand how a big shift in lifestyle shaped our own history,” senior author Pontus Skoglund in a press release.
The process of identifying early dogs was a long and difficult task since most canine skeletal remains resembled those of wolves. The team met another hurdle when dealing with ancient DNA, which is frequently degraded or contaminated. To overcome this, researchers used a targeted technique to isolate canid DNA fragments, allowing them to more reliably distinguish dogs from wolves.
Despite the arduous research, the study not only establishes the early presence of dogs, but it also confirms the genetic timeline of domesticated dogs.
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How dogs changed over time
The earliest specimen in the dataset is from Kesslerloch in Switzerland and dates to around 14,200 years ago. This aligns with related findings of a 15,800-year-old dog from Türkiye, extending the known history of domesticated dogs well beyond the previous genetic record from about 10,900 years ago.
The study also shows that these early European dogs shared ancestry with dogs from other regions, indicating they did not emerge from an independent domestication event in Europe. Rather, they were part of a broader population that spread alongside humans.
It was assumed that early European dogs traced most of their ancestry to wolves from eastern Eurasia, with only limited input from western wolves. But this points to a common origin rather than multiple domestication events.
Farming’s impact on dogs
The 2026 research also reveals how closely dog movements tracked human migration. During the Neolithic period, when farming spread into Europe around 10,000 years ago, some European dogs show an influx of Southwest Asian ancestry — mirroring the arrival of new human populations.
Yet, unlike humans, whose populations were often replaced or reshaped by environmental or human factors, dogs showed remarkable continuity.
Rather than being displaced, dogs associated with local hunter-gatherer groups and continued to contribute significantly to later populations. Many modern European dogs may still carry roughly half of their ancestry from these early, pre-farming lineages.
“It’s fascinating that dogs living before the era of agriculture contributed substantially to the genetics of farming and present-day European dogs,” Skoglund told EurekAlert!.
A second analysis, first published in 2025, cited in the research found that domesticated dogs were already widely distributed across western Eurasia by at least 14,300 years ago. Despite being linked to culturally and genetically distinct human groups, these dogs were genetically similar, suggesting rapid movement across regions.
“The sprint of these dog populations between these human groups that were culturally and genetically distinct must have been extremely rapid,” said postdoctoral researcher Lachie Scarsbrook, who worked on the study, told reporters in during a press conference on Tuesday.
While the exact roles dogs played remain uncertain, their persistent presence points to their importance in early human societies.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)