How Long Have We Been Keeping Dogs on Leashes?

A new find of very old artwork depicts dogs wearing leashes. Learn more about our history with man’s best friend in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren bogelbam 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

(00:26):
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 thousand 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 describes recently discovered rock carvings in the

(00:49):
northwestern region of the Saudi Arabian Desert. They illustrate prehistoric
hunting practices using dogs as assistants. The depicted dogs look
much like modern Canaan dogs, with erect years 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

(01:10):
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,

(01:33):
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

(01:55):
pottery that's about eight thousand years old. These newly found
drawings certainly are the oldest to pay 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

(02:17):
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.

(02:45):
Today's episode was written by Jesselyn Shields and produced by
Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other
dog on fascinating topics, visit our home planet, how stuff
works dot com