How Dogs Helped Us Become Human

I posted last year some initial thoughts on Pat Shipman's book, The Invaders, about the origins of domesticated dogs and the competition between homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Paleoanthropologists, behavioral scientists, and others continue to both push back the dates when wolf-dogs appeared and expand our understanding of just how sophisticated canine is thinking and emotion. Some scientists believe the first wolf-dogs emerged as early as 36,000 years ago, though this is claim is disputed by others. Regardless of the actual date, which we may never know, it is clear that dogs and man have coexisted in a symbiotic relationship thousands of years longer than we have long thought.

The wonderful Claremont Review of Books let me review Shipman's book. I argued that dogs were a critical part of making us human, not merely helping us survive the evolutionary competition with the Neanderthals, not to mention the saber tooth tigers. Given the central role of dogs as hunters, watchers, and workers alongside man in the millennia since they appeared, it is not too hyperbolic to claim that we would not have become the species we are, were it not for our unique partnership with dogs. You can find the essay here.