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40 Animals that Changed History

Tim Flight November 5, 2019 26 min

Medieval Dogs - Dog — King John of England with his dogs, England, c.1307-27. British Library

18. The domestication of dogs 14,000 years ago changed the course of history

Beware of the dog mosaic, House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii, 1st Century AD. The Outlook

When our ancestors first flung scraps to habituated wolves lurking by their campfires, they unwittingly changed the course of history. These domesticated wolves, over many generations, radically changed the human story. First, they helped us hunt more successfully, stopping us from starving to death. At the same time, they protected us from predators, allowing us to flourish in greater numbers. When humans began farming, they kept predators away from livestock. Quite simply, without dogs, the agricultural revolution wouldn’t have happened. From this more settled way of life, 14,000 years ago, civilization developed, and the rest is, quite frankly, history…

Written by

Tim Flight

I am a freelance historical and literary writer based in West Yorkshire, UK. I read for a funded PhD in English at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) and graduated in 2016. I am a former lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. My publications include peer-reviewed articles in academic publications, and pieces in mainstream magazines such as History Today and Fortean Times. For more information, please see www.drflight.co.uk