Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey Rain Stuff Lauren boglebom here with another classic episode. When this one first came out, research had just been published showing the keeping dogs as pets, leashes and everything is a practice way older than anyone previously suspected. Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bogobom here, Your dog might not like being on a leash. He loves walks, of course, but could it be his
glances are sometimes a touch reproachful. As he gazes at you over the pile of leaves he's snuffling. The look might be saying, I am hurt by your distrust your ancestors. Let my ancestors roam free and now here I a noble beast and chained. If your dog lays that one on you, your best recourse is to show him the world's oldest known dog art. Ancient humans may have been primitive, but even nine years ago they seem to have been
wise to the ways of the canine. A study published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology in November seventeen describes recently discovered rock carvings in the northwestern region of the Saudi Arabian Desert. They illustrate prehistoric hunting practices using dogs as assistants. The depicted dogs look much like modern Canan dogs, with erect ears, long feathery tails, and short snouts. Each one has a distinctive coat pattern, suggesting the artists knew
the dogs personally and similar to modern dogs. Two are shown tethered to the waste of a human hunter. The engravings were discovered as part of a project led by a research team from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in partnership with the Saudi Commission
for Tourism and National Heritage. Over one thousand, four hundred rock art panels showing almost seven thousand animals, ranging from lions and leopards to gazelle and wild donkeys, have been found during the studies three year run, but these dogs might be the most exciting find because they give us clues to when and why dogs were domesticated by humans.
It is very difficult to date rock engravings, but the research team estimated these to be around nine thousand years old, making them probably the oldest depictions of human dog interactions ever found. Even if they're overshooting their estimate the next oldest dog art would be on some Iranian pottery that's about eight thousand years old. These newly found drawings certainly
are the oldest depiction of a leashes. Before this find, the oldest art showing restrained dogs was from a five thousand, five hundred year old Egyptian wall painting. Although this rock art gives us a better sense of how humans interacted with dogs during this time, it's possible that dogs were domesticated much earlier, possibly between fifteen thousand and thirty thousand years ago, and the domestication process may have happened more
than once. It's not known whether the leashes in these rock art panels are literal or symbolic, but it certainly suggests that these Holocene hunters had a lot of control over their dogs, that some dogs could have been more valuable than others and therefore kept closer, and that the people likely bred and trained these prehistoric pooches. Today's episode was written by Jesslyn Shields and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Clang. For more in this lots of other topics,
visit House to Forks dot com. Brainstuff is production of I Heart radio or more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.