That's certainly what we would expect. But I was thinking of a study done about ten or fifteen years ago that showed four distinct lineages of canids, one of which went to wolves, and the other three of which went to dogs. Each of those lineages, at least of the three dog groups, converged about 12,000 years ago, and all four converged on a common ancestor about 50,000 years ago. On that evidence, it would certainly look more like wolves are descended from dogs, than dogs from wolves.
The stereotype of the domestication event is that some caveman killed the mother wolf, and let his kids raise the puppies. But if the study is correct, then domestication of the dog might be a little more complex than that. The common ancestor was more likely some kind of wolf-dog-jackal creature, neither dog nor wolf as we think of them today, that hung around, and followed, top-level predators like the big cats, to get a share of their kills when they were done. When modern humans spread out over the world about 50,000 years ago as serious big-game hunters in their own right, at the expense of the big cats, the wolf-dogs started following the human bands instead. They were wild and independent, and hung around the fringes of camp like a plague of giant rats, who could snap up food in a heartbeat, or a weak, lone human as well.
12,000 years ago would be the point at which humans learned to store meat beyond consumption in the next few days. From that point, dogs lived with humans only by tolerance as the humans chose to share their food or not. Three lines became domesticated. A fourth broke off to become a top-level predator in its own right.
My thinking anyway. But yes, it will have been a common ancestor, and it will have looked more like a wolf.
Actually, I think they both rise from a common ancestor that was more like a wolf.
That's certainly what we would expect. But I was thinking of a study done about ten or fifteen years ago that showed four distinct lineages of canids, one of which went to wolves, and the other three of which went to dogs. Each of those lineages, at least of the three dog groups, converged about 12,000 years ago, and all four converged on a common ancestor about 50,000 years ago. On that evidence, it would certainly look more like wolves are descended from dogs, than dogs from wolves.
The stereotype of the domestication event is that some caveman killed the mother wolf, and let his kids raise the puppies. But if the study is correct, then domestication of the dog might be a little more complex than that. The common ancestor was more likely some kind of wolf-dog-jackal creature, neither dog nor wolf as we think of them today, that hung around, and followed, top-level predators like the big cats, to get a share of their kills when they were done. When modern humans spread out over the world about 50,000 years ago as serious big-game hunters in their own right, at the expense of the big cats, the wolf-dogs started following the human bands instead. They were wild and independent, and hung around the fringes of camp like a plague of giant rats, who could snap up food in a heartbeat, or a weak, lone human as well.
12,000 years ago would be the point at which humans learned to store meat beyond consumption in the next few days. From that point, dogs lived with humans only by tolerance as the humans chose to share their food or not. Three lines became domesticated. A fourth broke off to become a top-level predator in its own right.
My thinking anyway. But yes, it will have been a common ancestor, and it will have looked more like a wolf.