Dogs Might have Helped Humans Kill Mammoths

Dogs might have helped early humans kill a large number of mammoths, a new study finds.

For the study, scientists analysed European archaeological sites that had huts made with mammoth bones.

Pat Shipman, lead author of the research, suggests that dogs might have helped early humans kill the large beasts. Mammoths were the ancient cousins of the modern-day elephants.

Archaeological sites with stone and mammoth bones suddenly appeared in central and eastern Eurasia between 45,000 to 15,000 years ago, according to a news release from Penn State.

"One of the greatest puzzles about these sites is how such large numbers of mammoths could have been killed with the weapons available during that time," Shipman said in a news release.

Previous research has suggested that droughts or other natural disasters could have killed mammoths in large numbers. However, the evidence backing this claim was missing.

An important push in Shipman's research came from the work done by Mietje Germonpré of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. Germonpré found that dogs were domesticated by humans at these ancient sites. Shipman used this research to explore how dogs and humans got together to kill elephants.

In 2011, another team of scientists had found a prehistoric dog with a mammoth bone in its mouth. They analyzed the skull of the dog and found that it belonged to a domesticated breed of dogs and not a wild one.

"Dogs help hunters find prey faster and more often, and dogs also can surround a large animal and hold it in place by growling and charging while hunters move in. Both of these effects would increase hunting success," Shipman said.

Also, dogs could help guard the kill from other carnivores and even help carry the prey home, Shipman added.

The study article is published in the journal Quaternary International.