Europe’s first farmers travelled with their dogs

The first farmers who arrived into Europe had company when they travelled out of the Near East during the Neolithic expansion. Along with many other plants and animals, they also brought their dogs. The international collaboration conducted by researchers at École Normale Supérieure of Lyon, the University of Oxford, the National History Museum and the University of Rennes, has revealed that dogs have quite literally been man's best friend, from as far back as 9,000 years ago. The study published in Biology Letters , used genetic DNA sequencing to assess whether the incoming farmers had bought Near Eastern dogs along with them, or if they had instead adopted indigenous European dogs after their arrival. The Neolithic is a cultural revolution that took place more than 11,000 years ago, which was marked first by the birth of settled agricultural practices and then by the spread of those traditions across Europe. The team analysed samples from 99 ancient European and Near Eastern dogs remains, spanning the Upper Palaeolithic and Bronze age. The findings suggest that the dogs accompanied people during the Neolithic migration from the Near East to the North and West of Europe.