Dr. Lahtinen and her colleagues eliminate competition from the equation. In winter, humans from the ice age would have to give up plants, depending on hunting. But people don’t survive on protein alone. Eventually, they starve to death or are poisoned by proteins. They need fat, so they would have mostly eaten the fatty parts of the prey, with a little lean meat left over. Wolves, with different digestive systems, can live a long time with pure protein.
The researchers say in their study that, among Arctic human hunters, animal protein could have provided up to 45% of the calories needed in winter. They also calculated the amount of protein in the prey available to wolves in the ice age, showing that they have protein “above the limits that humans can consume” People and wolves hunt similar species, so if humans consume the same animals, they would have an excess of protein in their deaths.
Humans, including modern hunter-gatherers, have a strange habit of feeding other animals and keeping them, at least for a while. Therefore, the authors are inclined to the idea of several human flocks occasionally stealing a wolf cub. Eventually, the two species became closer and the new wolf dogs became useful. Many thousands of years later, we have puppies with a pandemic.
The hypothesis is just that, an idea of what could have happened, not a demonstration of what happened. But Naomi Sykes, a zooarcheologist at the University of Exeter in Britain, who reviewed the article for publication, said the researchers highlighted two important points. “The first is the suggestion that there would be minimal food competition between humans and wolves.” The second, she said, is that their hypothesis “turns the idea of domestication” to people who feed animals, rather than raising them to eat.
She said archaeological findings indicate that the domestication of chickens, rabbits, horses and other animals may have started with the animals being deliberately fed. In some of the first discoveries, she said, the ancient bones show that the animals were “being kept, cared for and even worshiped instead of eaten”.