Summary
According to the Urantia Papers, dog domestication began 500,000 years ago. Because an unbroken chain of domestication is said to have persisted amongst a one particular ancient race, the inference would be that other groups were unable to maintain culture continuity. This suggests that there may be some irregularities in our efforts to track dog domestication. Nonetheless, prior to publication of the Urantia, there was no genetic science and scant archaeological evidence on which to develop a scientific consensus.
Finding archaeological evidence to support dog domestication going back tens of thousands of years is an unpredictable challenge, let alone hundreds of thousands of years. Geneticists are now in the game, which creates a new opportunity for integrating another field of science into the study. For instance, genetics can allow for comparison between human and dog genetic and migration patterns.
Generally speaking, the more the dog domestication date gets pushed back closer to 500,000 years ago the better. Already, dog evolution has haplotype markers dating to this period.
From the Urantia Papers:
(69:7.3) It was easy to tame some animals, but like the elephant, many of them would not reproduce in captivity. Still further on it was discovered that certain species of animals would submit to man’s presence, and that they would reproduce in captivity. The domestication of animals was thus promoted by selective breeding, an art which has made great progress since the days of Dalamatia [500,000 years ago].
(69:7.4) The dog was the first animal to be domesticated, and the difficult experience of taming it began when a certain dog, after following a hunter around all day, actually went home with him. For ages dogs were used for food, hunting, transportation, and companionship. At first dogs only howled, but later on they learned to bark. The dog’s keen sense of smell led to the notion it could see spirits, and thus arose the dog-fetish cults. The employment of watchdogs made it first possible for the whole clan to sleep at night. It then became the custom to employ watchdogs to protect the home against spirits as well as material enemies. When the dog barked, man or beast approached, but when the dog howled, spirits were near. Even now many still believe that a dog’s howling at night betokens death.
(66:5.4) 2. The board of animal domestication and utilization. This council was dedicated to the task of selecting and breeding those animals best adapted to help human beings in bearing burdens and transporting themselves, to supply food, and later on to be of service in the cultivation of the soil. This able corps was directed by Bon [at Dalamatia].
(81:2.11) Most of the animals best suited to domestication were found in Asia, especially in the central to southwest regions. This was one reason why civilization progressed faster in that locality than in other parts of the world. Many of these animals had been twice before domesticated, and in the Andite age they were retamed once again. But the dog had remained with the hunters ever since being adopted by the blue man long, long before [and presumably fostered by Bon since Dalamatia].
Evidence for Dog Domestication
500,000 years ago: Wikipedia review (2025):
“The Zhoukoudian wolf Canis variabilis Pei, 1934 is an extinct small wolf that once inhabited part of what is now China and Yakutia. Richard H. Tedford compared C. mosbachensis (which was once distributed from Western Europe to Kazakhstan) with C. variabilis (which was once distributed from Kazakhstan to China) because they both existed in the Middle Pleistocene across mid-latitude Eurasia. …
“In 2018, a study proposed that Canis variabilis should be recognized as Canis mosbachensis variabilis, an east Eurasian subspecies of the west Eurasian C. mosbachensis. …
“The small wolf was initially named Canis lupus variabilis but was later recognised as a variant of Canis variabilis (Pei 1934) that was also discovered and named by Pei in the same year.[21] Pei stated that the Nihewan wolves[22] attributed to Canis chihliensis should also be included in this new category.[2]: 18 Canis variabilis was also known from Lantian County in Shaanxi Province,[23] so it had a wide range in time and space. At the site, the small wolf’s remains were in close proximity to Homo erectus pekinensis or Peking Man, in layers dating back to 500,000-200,000 YBP. …
“More recent researchers have revisited Pei’s view that the ancestor of the dog is a now extinct Canis lupus, and proposed that C. variabilis might be an ancestor of the dog lineage.[25][26]“
400,000 years ago: Nature (2022), “A Middle Pleistocene wolf from central Italy provides insights on the first occurrence of Canis lupus in Europe.” Concluding paragraph:
“Concluding, PF-PG1 attests the presence of modern wolf-like morphologies in Europe at 406.5 ± 2.4 ka, suggesting a climate-induced turnover between the latest Early to early Middle Pleistocene forms of C. mosbachensis and those succeeding referable to C. lupus. It remains to be clarified whether C. mosbachensis represents a reliable taxonomic entity or it should rather be considered an early morphotype of C. lupus.”
100,000 years ago: Science Vol. 276, No. 5319 (1997), “Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog.” Abstract:
“Mitochondrial DNA control region sequences were analyzed from 162 wolves at 27 localities worldwide and from 140 domestic dogs representing 67 breeds. Sequences from both dogs and wolves showed considerable diversity and supported the hypothesis that wolves were the ancestors of dogs. Most dog sequences belonged to a divergent monophyletic clade sharing no sequences with wolves. The sequence divergence within this clade suggested that dogs originated more than 100,000 years before the present. Associations of dog haplotypes with other wolf lineages indicated episodes of admixture between wolves and dogs. Repeated genetic exchange between dog and wolf populations may have been an important source of variation for artificial selection.”
36,000 years ago: PLOS (2013), “Ancient DNA Analysis Affirms the Canid from Altai as a Primitive Dog.” Abstract excerpt:
“Putative dog remains ranging in age from 31,000 to 36,000 cy [2] [8]–[9] have been questioned as potentially representing aborted attempts at domestication, or morphologically unique wolves [4]. A full mitochondrial genome analysis of modern dogs suggests an origin in southern China around 16,000 years ago [10], whereas an extensive nuclear genome-wide SNP analysis supports a Middle East and European origin [11], which is more in accordance with archaeological data. Here we isolated, sequenced and analysed 413 nucleotides of the mitochondrial DNA control region from a putative dog specimen dated as approx. 33,000 cy from the Altai Mountains in central Asia. Only a single specimen – namely the Goyet dog (36,000 cy [2]) predates the Altai dog and hence it is thus far the second oldest known specimen assigned morphologically to the domestic dog [8].”
23,000 years ago: PNAS (2021), “Dog domestication and the dual dispersal of people and dogs into the Americas.” Abstract excerpt:
“This evidence places constraints on when and where dog domestication took place. Most significantly, it suggests that dogs were domesticated in Siberia by ∼23,000 y ago, possibly while both people and wolves were isolated during the harsh climate of the Last Glacial Maximum.”
Additional considerations
This is a fascinating video about an effort to breed foxes for friendliness.