Credit to my fiance with a special interest in evolutionary biology and the history of human domestication of other species (and who is also currently HIGH AS HELL).
If my dog was bringing his ball or stick back to me out of some evolutionary instinct to be helpful, you’d think he’d actually drop it and give it to me. If I’m some primitive person and missed my shot with a spear, my dog would bring the spear back, but I’m not getting another shot at that mammoth until I win a game of tug first.
Lol I literally think of this comic everyday.
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The dog just wants to have a go as well
I think it’s generally because if you shot a bird that you want to eat, they’d bring it back to you.
That’s what I recall from the retriever breeds anyway.
Dogs were instrumental in early human survival and they’ve benefited for it. There’s almost a billion dogs in the world, but only a quarter million wolves. So in a natural selective sense that was a good move wolves made by becoming companions with humans.
Behavior has been bred into dogs going way back to the beginning. Fetch is one of those behaviors. I recently watched a documentary that showed the unique interaction of dogs with humans. Dogs are really good at understanding human body language. For example you can point at something and a dog will cue on it. No other animals reliably respond to that gesture, even chimpanzees which are genetically closest to us.
Maybe they bring them back because they like to chase them. I don’t know I’m not a dog scientist.
But you’re still a good boy
I believe the correct term is dogologist.
Unrelated, but your username makes me sad :(
Journey before destination my brother
Why?
It’s referencing a character who met an unjust end in the book series The Stormlight Archive.
Don’t worry. I’m chilling in the Spiritual Realm with Venli. Probably gonna heal right up and come back in book six.
If the Sandoman doesn’t do this, all my dreams will be crushed.
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I thought we domesticated wolves (now dogs) after we had passed our nomad phase and were in our settlement phase (which we are still in now). I’m not certain, but I think the mammoth was already extinct at that time.
Also, I think dogs were generally trained to bring anything of importance back to us. For example, dogs also bring back wounded or dead prey. They still do for hunters today. So I think it’s a bit broader than what you’re describing :)
Dog domestication predates non-nomadic agriculture. https://www.pnas.org/cgl/doi/10.1073/pnas.0901586106
There were still some mammoths hanging around Siberia in 3000 BCE when the Pyramids were being built, long after agriculture was already becoming very prevalent in many cultures.
Your dog may bring back important items. My Shiba thinks it fun to play keep away!!
I think there’s too much emphasis on primitive weapons as hunting and not enough on just walking until the thing dies (which wolves are also suited). Just relentless stalking, even if we’ve lost a limb we had to cut off our own body. Humans are like the monster in a slasher movie
An even quicker option is to find a cliff and chase the herd off it. Have some of your folks run the herd toward a cliff, and the rest of them at the bottom with rocks to finish off the animals. The oldest blueprints ever found were of structures that would funnel animals to a pit or cliff so they’d be easier to kill.
You found a great fiance 😁 She asks the really big questions!
I suspect it’s mutual. It allows things like fetching downed small prey, like certain modern hunting dogs are trained to do, so fetching spears and whatnot isn’t too far of a stretch.
Meanwhile, it lets dogs exercise, play, and otherwise flex their instincts. Not to mention that they’re perception of humans as pack leaders and family inclines then to like making they’re person happy. Working dogs are seen clearly enjoying their work and/or the rewards (emotional and otherwise) from their humans.
This is a seriously interesting speculation. This may very well be a thing.
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