Talk:Domestication of the dog/Archive 2

Are grey wolves the ancestor of dogs?
How can the article state grey wolves are not the ancestors of dogs? Recent studies confirmed that they are. Of course they are not descended from modern wolves, they were domesticated more than 18,000 years ago. Pleistocene wolves are still Canis lupus. European dholes are the only other medium to large canid that time, and they are certainly not "wolf or dog-like". Editor abcdef (talk) 06:03, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello abcdef. Firstly, please identify to me where in this newspaper article the term grey wolf was used - the paragraph and the sentence - instead of "ancient wolf-like animals" as the eminent Professor of Evolutionary Biology at UCLA has stated. Secondly, Freedman 2014 found that the only relationship to the grey wolf is through admixture. This means that we are now not even sure if the ancestor was any type of wolf, and therefore the experts are using the term wolf-like. If you go the Gray wolf page, you will find that there is no claim that it is the ancestor of the dog. Thirdly, see Dog regarding the derivation of Canis lupus familiaris - just because some publication in North America decided to say that the dog is part of the grey wolf clan without consultation across the scientific community, that does not mean it is so. The term Canis familiaris can still be used, and there are internationally renowned researchers publishing works under that name because they will not accept the wolf designation. Fourth, given that Freedman 2014 had indicated that the only link to the grey wolf is through admixture, the classification in that publication is now a joke and needs to be changed back to Canis familiaris - given time, it will be. Fifth, did you think that the people that helped to compile this page did not understand all of this, that despite all of the scientific publications cited here you know better with a much dumbed-down newspaper article on the Thalmann 2013 study (which appears on the Origin page but you did not bother to read), and that you can just tinker with the first sentence without reading anything on the page because you think that was correct? Sixth, I have had to clean up your similar actions across the Origin page, the Dog page and the Gray wolf page - that is time I could have spent publishing something creative on Wikipedia. Did you think that nobody was watching? Wikipedia is about cooperation, not adversarialism - please change your approach. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   20:20, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Please explain what other medium to large canid species existed in Europe 18,000 years ago other than megafaunal wolves, which are Canis lupus, and European dhole. Editor abcdef (talk) 03:59, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Certainly. The research conducted by Freedman 2014 - which consisted of 30 top evolutionary biologists across 19 universities in 4 continents - found that there was "greater wolf diversity" than exists today. There was a "population bottleneck" at the end of the last ice age that reduced "wolf diversity" by a third. What this means is that there were 3 times as many wolf-like creatures running around then as there is today, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They are describes as wolf-like canids - but this does not mean that they were wolves, that is just a description so that people today can understand the scientists work. There was the pleistocene wolf who is the direct ancestor of most grey wolves today, referred to as haplotype 2 among the experts. (Haplogroup basically means that some of their genetic material was inherited from a common ancestor). You are correct in that one type was what has recently been referred to as the megafaunal wolf - who is referred to as haplotype 1 - and was morphologically different and as far as we know and has no descendants today. To make things complicated, there are also some haplogroup 1 grey wolves living today, largely in Italy and eastern Europe. This means that they are genetically slightly different to the other grey wolves and probably shared a common ancestor with the megafaunal wolves. Based on the DNA analysis of extinct canids, scientists can infer that there were other canids at this time who have added to the mix (other haplotypes), and one of these would have been the ancestor of the dog, who we have yet to find a fossil of. DNA points to it existing, but we have not found it. Some of this is touched upon in this reference: Of interest, at the same time in North America, the pleistocene coyote was the size of a wolf. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   21:25, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, to answer you questions raised with me on other pages recently. The dog was classified from Canis familiaris as Canis lupus familiaris because some time ago, two very bright geneticists discovered that it was genetically close to the grey wolf. One of them said that the grey wolf was its ancestor, and the other said that some wolf-like canid was its ancestor. The dog was then published in a zoological publication as Canis lupus familiaris - a sub-species of the grey wolf, without consultation across the scientific community. However, your friend the Dingo was classified as Canis dingo, a separate species. When Freedman 2014 looked for the ancestor of the dog, that group based it on the genetic analysis of a Basenji and a Dingo. Why would they do that? Because the evolutionary biologists no longer have an interest in a classification system that was designed 2 centuries ago and uses 3 levels of latin classification. They have the multi-billion letter DNA code to work with - they have the dog's name, address and postal code. They regard the Dingo as a dog, and found that the dog is not a grey wolf, its DNA was similar due to cross-breeding. Two of the participants on Freedman were the same two scientists who did the DNA analysis many years ago. One of them proved correct in the long run - the dog is a descendant of a wolf-like canid. So what must the zoologists do to catch up to what we know in the 21st Century? The dog must be reclassified as Canis familiaris, and the dingo a subspecies as Canis familiaris dingo. That would solve your issue with what is going on in some other pages. But don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen any time soon - some zoologists made one mistake classifying on the basis of the geneticists work and they are very wary about making another.
 * Feel free to chat to me about these matters on my talk page, or call me on your talk page by pasting my User name as below, as it is probably not wise to make changes to multiple Wikipedia pages posing the same type of question, only to have you changes reverted when the question could have been simply addressed on a Talk page. This approach helps avoid edit wars, which is against Wikipedia's rules. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   21:56, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Altai dog - 33,000 BP
Image caption does not match text, which suggests genetic relation to at least two modern breeds. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:56, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello SMcCandlish ☺, thanks for that and image amended. It has no direct descendents today. A dog specimen from Greenland dated 1,000 years ago appears to be a direct descendent but they are no longer around - to our best knowledge. The two modern breed haplotypes are at least one mutation away. I shall be supplying more on this boy based on the Lee (May 2015) study. And curiously, there is one dog breed today whose skull morphology is very similar to this specimen and therefore should attract further research - the Central Asian Shepherd. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   02:42, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Domestication of the dog
I think the section under "Domestication" should be separated from this article and made a separate article. It doesn't really have anything to do with dog evolution or origin and I think it's important enough to have its own article. There is already an article on the domestication of the horse. I think there should be something similar here. Thank you. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 04:41, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You will find that the article titled Domestication of the dog is a redirect back to this page, so I am unsure of what standard of discovery you have undertaken to convince yourself that this is the correct course of action. "Dog domestication does not have anything to do with evolution or origin." How so? William Harris  •   talk •   09:38, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Paleoecology
Why is there such a long section under "Paleoecology"? Surely, this can be shorten to just the basic points? A couple of brief paragraphs? Doesn't most of it link to more appropriate articles where readers who want to know more about this subject can find it? I read through the whole thing trying to figure out what it had to do with dogs only to discover it doesn't have anything to do with dogs except at the very end. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 03:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Because without the Last Glacial Maximum there was no dog and possibly no modern wolf. You cannot separate one from the other. They both warrant this degree of description - this is supposed to be an encyclopedic undertaking, not a dumb-down newspaper undertaking. And no, it does not link to more appropriate articles - the articles you have in mind have received their citations from this page, which currently number 119. This section is a short overview that takes in the material that should be able to be found on the pages covering the Last Glacial Maximum, the Bering land bridge, Megafauna, History of human migration, and Agriculture if only those pages were kept up to date with citable material, and each of them has impacted on the dog (and shockingly impacted on the wolf). I would like to see other editors opinions regarding this. William Harris  •   talk •   09:45, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Evolution of the dog
Why isn't this article called "Evolution of the dog"? That way it could include information on the dog's ancestors instead of just its two wolf siblings back 30,000 years. I came here tonight looking for that information but I still don't know for sure, I think I'm going to have to work backward from Caninae and hope I get what I need. Sigh.... Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 05:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If you look in the Archive of this Talk Page, under Item 41:Rename the title of this page, you will find that I had suggested on 1 January a retitle of ths article. The argument at the time favoured no. "I came here tonight looking for that information but I still don't know for sure." If you had have read the first line of the article, it clearly states The origin of the domestic dog is not clear.

Under the heading First Divergence, it clearly states The ancestral fossils have not yet been found. We do not know who the ancestor is because its remains have not been found - I fail to understand why you did not discover that in those two areas, which leads me to the conclusion that you did not actually read the article. "I think I'm going to have to work backward from Caninae and hope I get what I need." Good luck with that. William Harris •  Spacing Guild  •  talk •   09:40, 30 August 2015 (UTC)


 * You're talking about the immediate ancestors. I was looking for information going back tens of millions of years.  As I said above, I finally went with Caninae, then worked backwards.  I didn't learn as much as I had hoped but I found what I needed.  Thanks for asking though! Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors  (talk) 04:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors, I have provided some material under Gray wolf which may help. If you are going back tens of millions of years, there was not even a dog nor wolf. The second pix under Canis lepophagus may help show some distant relatives if you enlarge it. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   08:15, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I know there weren't any dogs or wolves then. But evolution of the dog is more than it's immediate ancestor and that's what I was looking for.  I will take a look at Canis lepophagus, thank you for suggesting it.


 * Back -- this is very interesting, thank you again for suggesting it.

Splitting this article
I don't think the extensive section under "Domestication" should be here -- I think it should be spun off and made into a separate article. There is a section on "Domestication" in the Dog article, so a link could be put there. Note, there is an article on Domestication of the horse. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 04:32, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There is already a link under Origin in the Dog article - did you not notice?


 * A link to what? Domestication of the horse?


 * Most major Wikipedia articles about animals have a general lead-in with information about evolution near the top of the page. Often there is a link to a second article on the animal's evolution which is what I expected to find at "Dog," but it deviates from the usual pattern.  "Origin of the Dog" could be so much better if it included information about early evolution and where dogs fit into that category.  Could you write something like that?  Or take what is at "Dog," incorporate it into "Origin," and rename it "Evolution of the dog"?

I am not against the idea of splitting Domestication off as a separate article, but you would need to outline:
 * 1) how that would work without people slowly rebuilding the content now found in the Origin section on this new page as well, therefore leading to duplication (and we both know that this will happen)


 * Wikipedia is chock-full of duplication, that's what makes it such a useful reference and learning tool. I think we're both old enough to remember when space in a text or reference book was at a premium, but that argument isn't valid any more.  As for "slowly," I'm not saying it should be rewritten, I think the top half of this article should remain the same (minus some of the Paleoecology section) with the addition of information about the dog's evolution.  Then switch the name to "Evolution of the dog."  Then separate the bottom half (ie, domestication section), and make that a second article, "Domestication of the dog."


 * If the domestication of the horse is important enough to have its own article, then surely the same is true of the dog, doubly so.
 * However, there is no Origin of the horse. William Harris  •   talk •   09:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * 1) on which of the two pages would the Archaeological evidence table sit
 * 2) what exactly is to be gained, apart from making it harder for people to find closely-related information.


 * It won't make it harder to find information, it will make it easier. Readers will have access to 1) Dog; 2) Evolution of the dog; and 3) Domestication of the dog; the latter two with links at Dog and to each other.  Since you are the author of most (all?) of this article, I think you should be on what the end result is.  Look at it this way -- instead of one super-long article covering two different subjects, you can have two articles that more people will take the time to read all the way through. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors  (talk) 04:06, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no argument here. When I first overhauled this article nearly a year ago, the criterion that I used was that anything from the divergence of the dog up until 4,000 years ago - when the first breeds were recorded in Egypt - was in-scope. Anything that was younger than 4,000 years was transferred to the Dog breed-related pages. Anything about grey wolves was deleted as the dog is not a grey wolf (Thalmann 2013, Freedman 2014, Skoglund 2015). The basis of a split would be from the divergence of the dog up until 15,000 years ago, when the first remains of what is both morphological and genetically identified as a dog was found associated with a human campsite (Eliseevich-1) i.e. domestication. However, this is not my call; others must have an opportunity to give their input, and anything dog related will bring them. William Harris  •   talk •   09:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Additionally, the section on Palaeolithic dogs could be relocated onto the linked page. Now actioned. William Harris  •   talk •   10:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The section on Europe could be reduced in volume now as it has served its purpose; later articles are more of an interest to readers.  William Harris  •   talk •   09:41, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Edit Request
The abbreviation 'BP' (which I assume means 'before present') is used in this article without being defined. I propose that the first use of the term be changed from 'BP' to 'before present (BP)' to avoid confusion. I am unable to edit this article myself. Badgertits69 (talk) 01:05, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello Badgertits69, now addressed, thanks. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   20:19, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Origin of the domestic dog - split
Hello All, a proposal has been made (above) to split this article into two sections. One section would be relocated under what is currently the redirect that is titled Dog domestication, and this would include the current Sections 7-Domestication and 8-Convergent evolution. There would be links between the two pages. The first 6 Sections would remain under the Origin page. As this would mean a major undertaking relevant to dogs and their interested readers, I will be posting this proposal on the Talk:Dog page and the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs page. I seek editor's feedback on this proposal under this section over the next fortnight. Please vote YES or NO under this section. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   22:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I await your reasoning, but I'm initially uneasy about this idea. It sounds on the face of it like a possible WP:POVFORK, creating two articles about the same referent as a compromise because Wikipedians can't agree.  What is the difference between the origin of the domestic dog and dog domestication? For example, you could say, "one is a subset of the other" or "the Venn diagrams of the two referents overlap in such-and-such a way".  Chrisrus (talk) 03:31, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You should know me by now, Chrisrus, I simply ignore disagreements (not unlike one of my "wolf-like" colleagues active on the Gray wolf page) and take it the way I think best. However, it was a proper proposal put to the Talk page and I am cognizant of that. I will consult other editors and get their input, and thanks for your input. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   08:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * It's a huge article. If you aren't able to handle my suggestion that it separated into two articles based on subject, then just go with the fact that it's a very long article and seriously subject to tldr. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors  (talk) 04:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have just become aware of WP:SIZERULE, and the Origin article is 115kb in size. The advice is: >100kb-"Almost certainly should be divided" (and possibly flagged on the system somewhere and attracting the attention of the Guild of Copy Editors, Rissa?) >60kb-"Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)". If the decision is ultimately to not split, then it will certainly need to be paired back. William Harris  •   talk •   09:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Spinning off a section of a large article into an article of its own is standard practice. Which section are we spinning off? Chrisrus (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I share Chrisrus's concerns about a POV fork here. An article on the origin of the domestic dog isn't going to be the article that is the final word on the domestication of the domestic dog? That sounds ludicrous, and you can be assured as time goes by these two articles will both converge and become completely redundant. Is there not some other section that would be more appropriate to trim down or split off? Paleoecology and Convergent evolution look like two good candidates. Mmyers1976 (talk) 12:06, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Mr. Harris, please just describe what you want to do. We cannot rightly approve or disapprove of this plan if we don't know what it means.  This is just too vague. Please explain this proposal.  Chrisrus (talk) 23:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought that the top paragraph was fairly explicit, Chrisrus. I don't want to do anything, however Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors had proposed a split of the article because (a) it was too long, and (b) she could find no information on the dog's distant ancestors (i.e. 10s of millions of years ago). Dismissing point (b) for now, the article was 115kb in size, and based on WP:SIZERULE anything over 100kb "Almost certainly should be divided". The article is now 97kb, and may now fall within the ambit of over 60kb "Probably should be divided, although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material." So if you think that the "scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material", then vote NO i.e. NO SPLIT. We already have 2 editors expressing concern about WP:POVFORK, and I as a third raised it earlier with Rissa in a section above this one. Regards, William Harris  •  Spacing Guild  •  talk •   11:07, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the difference between the referents of the terms "origin of the domestic dog" and "dog domestication"? Chrisrus (talk) 13:57, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Chris, I would envisage that "Dog domestication" - which would be easy to find using a search engine - would cover the dog once it is under domus i.e. living under a roof. That would be everything from 15,000 YBP (Eliseevich-1 site) up until 4,000 YBP and the first types of "Dog breed", where a link would take a reader to that page. The "Origin of the domestic dog" would cover its evolution from around 40,000 years ago and the Gray wolf/Taimyr wolf/ancestral dog split. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   09:38, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Please don't do it this way. Instead, spin off a section or sections into articles of their own, leaving just a brief summary and/or a link behind.
 * The distinction between the referents of the terms Dog domestication and Origin of the domestic dog isn't clear and standard enough in either common or expert usage. A Venn diagram of the semantic areas of these two terms would overlap.  This will cause problems for incoming links. What referents will people have in mind when they type those terms in double brackets? Chrisrus (talk) 04:03, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Chris, there is little else to spin-off that would make a sizable difference. If I spin-off the dog domestication section, it is 60kb in its own right, and leaving almost a similar size for the Origin. I expect that Dog domestication will become the most visited of the two. Most of what is there is what I have put there, it has remained static for nearly 6 months, and I am out of ideas about where it goes next - others might have fresh ideas and enthusiasm under a new banner. However, I take your point and we will need to consider what might be a better title for the remaining section; Origin might become a redirect to a more appropriately-named article. (I have been in two minds about the merit of this spin-off over the last 2 weeks, until our involvement in "The Basenji Incident" recently - my work on this article is not yet done.) Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   09:25, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not clear that a process of spinning off sections into articles in their own, together with editing with an eye on WP:USEFEWWORDS wouldn't be just as effective. Chrisrus (talk) 16:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Chris, I agree with you. Also, I have only just discovered that the citations take up 25kb by themselves, and perhaps citing all 30 people in Thalmann and all 30 people in Freedman may not be the optimal way to go - a cut-down citing style may suffice for all of the articles that have a DOI. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   21:24, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

DECISION Hello All. The Origin of the domestic dog article has exceeded the guidelines on size limit (WP:SIZERULE) as it was 115kb in size. I had proposed a spin-off (WP:SPINOFF) of those sections relating to dog domestication to a new article called Dog domestication. The opinions of other editors were sort regarding the proposed spin-off and they shared concerns that the creation of a derivative article would lead to duplication rather than keeping all of the related information under the main article (WP:REDUNDANTFORK). Additionally, this article's citation style took up 25kb by themselves. I have moved information into other articles with links, reduced the citations by 15kb, and this article is now 81kb and is comparable in size with the Labrador Retriever article - nobody is proposing to reduce that. Therefore, a split will not proceed. Thanks for your input.

Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   09:29, 27 September 2015 (UTC) William Harris  •   talk •   09:25, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I typed in domestication of wolves and got this page so. It leads to this page no matter what you are looking for. Allanana79 (talk) 01:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Article is 135kb (suggestions for shortening)
This article is almost 135kb. It desperately needs shortening and or splitting. DrChrissy (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * 40kb is in references alone. The Thalmann 2013 citation is 1.5kb by itself, and so is Freedman 2014 again. This area is attracting major, international teams of researchers. Despite me having a no-bots template on the page and reducing these to an author/year/title/DOI, people come along and manually populate them again. The content is 95kb, half the size of Gray wolf and comparable with the Labrador retriever.
 * As I indicated under Talk:Gray wolf, there is a major international research project about to publish its findings sometime between now and the end of August:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/science/the-big-search-to-find-out-where-dogs-come-from.html?_r=1 I assume that you are aware of this because you have provided comment under that section. I do not expect much of this article will survive its findings, and this article may need to be renamed. Therefore, I propose no change until the report's release, as I did with fundamental changes to Gray wolf. Regards William Harris  •   talk •   21:30, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * William, do you agree that the article is too long? DrChrissy (talk) 00:53, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I disagree that the article is too long. My point is that after the flagship report is released, we will have a better idea of what the scope should be, and what is relevant and what is not. See above under "Origin of the domestic dog - split". I was not adverse to putting an axe through the centre of this article and spinning off the domestication section - the article is still structured to facilitate doing just that, and the "Dog domestication" page exists and is a redirect to here. I have no qualms about spinning off sections of it, however the timing now would be poor. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   01:55, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Section - Lupification of humans
The section "Lupification of humans" is only slightly related to the article subject. It has only 2 references, one of which is not generally available, and the other describes itself as an alternative theory. I propose this section is removed, or perhaps moved to its own page as a stub. DrChrissy (talk) 19:39, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Links and secondary sources now provided, and in doing so added another 2.5kb to the article in order to meet your needs. You appear to have assumed that nobody else has an interest in some of these concepts; clearly they have.
 * Given that two of the major players in the coming report, Wayne and Larson (2014), have both stated an interest in searching for a dog ancestor that was a wolf ecomorph which specialized in following the large herds across large distances as some northern wolves still do today - and by implication humans also began to follow them on arrival in Eurasia 50,000 years ago - your position of "is only slightly related to the article subject" appears at odds with the current research efforts - it may yet prove to be the key. You also might consider Losey's work on the ancient "Northern religion" and his archaeological/DNA finds of humans and wolves from ancient northern Eurasia - there may have been a major cultural and religious link between humans and wolves, then dogs. As Larson has stated, the story of the dog is the story of ourselves. I would add some of it into the article but some might see it as "only slightly related". Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   21:30, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * No. You have misunderstood me. I was suggesting the section is deleted from this article (but perhaps retained as a stub).  You appear to have increased the size of the article, whereas my intention is for the size to be reduced. The article is about wolves, not humans. DrChrissy (talk) 00:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I concur that this section is about wolves and their impact on humans, and could be better placed as an adjunct to a wolf page under "relationship with humans". But once again, I would like to await the flagship report to guide us as to WHICH wolf page. There is no guarantee that the wolf that we entered into a relationship with was Canis lupus, so we cannot simply attach it to the "Subspecies of Canis lupus" page, and the extant "Gray wolf" is only a distant relative. This gets back to the Talk:Gray wolf discussion about having a "Wolf" page that is not specific to C. lupus. Whether people like it or not, we now have a Gray wolf, an Eastern wolf, a Red wolf, a Himalayan wolf and an Indian "gray" wolf that are all no longer regarded as lupus. There may be more - the Tibetan wolf now looks as if it is about to also jump ship - and we may yet find in a remote corner of this planet an ancestral population that gave rise to the dog. William Harris  •   talk •   01:55, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * But why not split this off as a stub now, and then settle the (sub)species questions when the report is published? DrChrissy (talk) 18:56, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Because this title and this article may no longer exist depending on the findings of the major scientific undertaking - $3m spent over 3 years involving the biggest name researchers across 5 continents sequencing the DNA of over 4,000 ancient specimens - therefore I am not going to sweat the small stuff, e.g. should these few paragraphs be better placed over here or over there. William Harris  •   talk •   11:01, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Section - Domestication pathways

 * Commensal pathway - relevant, but could be shortened by 50%
 * Prey pathway - not relevant and should be deleted
 * Directed pathway - not relevant and should be deleted
 * Multiple pathways - not relevant and should be deleted
 * DrChrissy (talk) 20:27, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * We do not simply delete legitimate content from Wikipedia. WP:IRRELEVANT advises that "If the text does appear to belong in another article, it can and probably should be moved there." Similar to my recent content reduction on the Gray wolf page, the information was not simply deleted. It already resided on either "Origin of the domestic dog" - yes, the Origin section of the Gray wolf was born here on the "Origin of the domestic dog", and that which no longer resides here has been relocated onto the "Subspecies of Canis lupus" page. I developed it, I posted it on Gray wolf, and now that reduction was called for I reduced it. Nothing was lost.


 * Similarly, the new Wikipedia article Domestication of animals was born here on the ODD, the content just WP:SPINOFFed. Work commenced with it on the Domestication page during the solstice, it was developed on ODD, and replicated on the Domestication page mid-January. Reason? Domestication gets 1,100 vistors/day and ODD gets 1,400 visitors/day - it gives the content QA exposure to a potential 2,500 visitors/day, and some good minor edits have been made. I then compared both versions to form the new article. It was my intention to launch the new article at the coming equinox, but as you have raised the issue it can be launched a few weeks earlier than I had intended.


 * The article size is now 116kb but prose is 85kb - I regard that as acceptable. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   08:34, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

what is domestication?

 * The domestication of animals is the scientific theory of the mutual relationship between animals with the humans who have influence on their care and reproduction.

Silly me, I thought domestication was the process resulting in such a relation, rather than a theory thereof. —Tamfang (talk) 10:58, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Given that nobody has actually witnessed the proposed domestication process then it can only be a scientific theory. This article is in accord with Domestication - if you wish to discuss the matter further then I refer you to Talk:Domestication. William Harris  •   talk •   09:32, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Possible copyright infringement
There are three long paragraphs of quoted material I think may violate copyright. Also, there are several places where there is extensive quoting rather than sourced prose. Another thing -- the article uses these odd subheadings to introduce some paragraphs, something you might find in a textbook which made me wonder if that where they came from, a published textbook.

I think the three quoted paragraphs need to be summarized and then removed. The passages with extensive quotes should be rewritten. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 04:19, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Identify them please, rather than leave the rest of us in eternal mystery. Which 3? Additonaly, your attention is drawn to WP:QUOTE - if a quote is fully cited then it does not breach copyright as at no stage was copyright claimed. "something you might find in a textbook which made me wonder if that where they came from, a published textbook". The burden of proof falls on you to find it, rather than provide unsupported personal conjecture. William Harris  •   talk •   09:47, 30 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Something people who don't understand Wikipedia's position on quoting copyright-righted materials don't realize is that Wikipedia articles are in the public domain. Which means those three quotes can be used by anyone for any purpose without attribution which is something most writers and their publishers aren't happy with.  Furthermore, their presence indicates either laziness on the part of the person who put them in the article or his/her inability to write sourced prose.
 * You are correct that Wikipedia articles are in the public domain but cited material is NOT in the public domain - WP:COPYLINK. If another party uses the material without citation, then THEY are in breach of copywrite, not Wikipedia. Additionally, if prose is based on that material it still needs to be cited. As for the quotations that I have put there, I guess I am lazy - I will be pleased for you to indicate what trivia can be scrapped from them. William Harris  •   talk •   08:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I wondered if they, or parts of the rest of the article, were copied from a textbook because that's what it looks like -- that someone simply typed in sections of a copyrighted textbook including the introductory passages for each chapter of that book. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 18:00, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I am the architect and major contributor to this page, which has taken me over a year of spare time to re-engineer from the cut-n-paste from wolf-related websites that was once here to what is here today. I can assure you there is no textbook but over 100+ research articles balancing on my desk. Perhaps I should write a textbook, but as you have said, this stuff is obscure. Ask a question on any of its matters - I can tell you where it has come from, what it means, and what the researchers didn't spell out. William Harris  •   talk •   08:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the confusion might arise from the style used on the page. Wikipedia is not a textbook and should not read like one. The quality of the information may be fine but flavour quotes and a progression through the topic as though it's a thesis are not the method by which the site typically delivers information. 24.212.184.195 (talk) 22:54, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I looked at the talk page for this reason because I also wondered if it was plagiarized. I've never seen a Wikipedia page structured this way (italicized flavor text including statements using first person pronouns, e.g.. "We know ____"). In some cases, the italicized flavor text makes claims that aren't clearly cited, or seems to be in conflict with the content in the rest of the section, as in the "Place of divergence" section. There may be some issues with inadequate paraphrasing ( WP:PARAPHRASE )-- for example, the line "all zooarchaeologists support..." is identical to the citation except for a single word substitution ("proposition" rather than "contention"). "From a biologist's vantage point, the interwining process of hominization and canization makes sense only if viewed in terms of coevolution" is lifted directly from the cited source. Not sure how prevalent the paraphrasing issues are in the article as a whole. (Sorry for any issues with this comment, not normally a Wikipedia editor.) 138.110.178.33 (talk) 19:52, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The article was never designed to be progressed through. There is much diverse information that requires excellent structure and a good TOC. I would not expect a reader to start at the beginning and read it through, I would expect a reader to come and find the little bit of info that they were particularly interested in from the TOC, and only read that. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   20:34, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with the objections above to the italicized flavor text in this article, with the additional objection that it can easily become obsolete as more information is added. For example, the flavor text under "Time of Divergence" states "The ancestral dog and the ancestral modern gray wolf diverged from a common ancestor up to 40,000 years ago." However the Lee, et. al. 2015 discussion mentioning Canis variabilis in this article include the date from that paper of 360,000 YBP. This section includes copy-and-pasted text from that journal article, but excludes this sentence from the abstract: "The older canid specimens illustrate affinities with pre-domestic dog/wolf lineages while others appear in the major phylogenetic clades of domestic dogs." (On a side note, I find it fascinating to think that dog/human relations may not only predate modern dog species, but also modern human species!)
 * I have people criticizing the article because they cannot quickly get an overview of it, and when I provide an overview in the italics above major sections that gets criticized by some others as well. Given that the article averages 1,300 visits per day, and it has looked this way for over a year, and that one or two persons "object", I am not concerned because you cannot please everybody. None of this article is obsolete, and if it becomes so then someone will update it as this page has 98 watchers. The dog did not originate from variabilis, it is clearly a lupus. That there might be some variabilis in some dog lineages has yet to be proven, but I placed it in the article because - as you say - it is intriguing. (Without getting onto my soapbox, just because they got DNA from a variabilis dated 360,000 YPB and found a partial match with S805 dated 27,000 YBP, that does not mean that variabilis wasn't still around and mixing 27,000 YBP. Perhaps we just haven't found its more recent remains yet - we are still looking for the dog/gray wolf ancestor dated 15,000 - 40,000 YBP but haven't found that either.) Regarding your Lee comment, the "copy-and-pasted text from that journal article" you are now invited to highlight where from - the page number and the paragraph number, please. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   08:56, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

'The Goyet dog and the Altai dog'
Can the links on the above be re-pointed in the right direction. Jackiespeel (talk) 14:46, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jackie, now fixed. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   20:53, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Dog origins about to enter the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) homeland debate?
From Wang (2015): "As there is little evidence of westward human migrations from southern East Asia around 15 000 years ago, the initial spread of the domestic dog out of Asia may in part have been a self-initiated dispersal driven by environmental factors ..." From Fu (2016, "The genetic history of Ice Age Europe", http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature17993.html) " ... [s]econd, we detect an excess of allele sharing with east Asians in a subset of Villabruna Cluster individuals— beginning with an 13,000-year-old individual from Switzerland ... This statistic was originally interpreted as evidence of Basal Eurasian ancestry in Kostenki14. However, because this statistic is consistent with zero when Han is replaced with Ust’-Ishim, these findings cannot be driven by Basal Eurasian ancestry (as we discuss earlier), and must instead be driven by gene flow between populations related to east Asians and the ancestors of some Europeans." So some group with a Han Chinese connection made it's way to Europe to mix with proto-Europeans, or else the original "PIE" homeland was southern China. In either case, it appears that they brought their dogs with them. To the principal editor of this page: I strongly advise rewriting explanatory material to be as non-controversial and neutral as possible, e.g. removing phrases like "lupification of humans" and "psychological convergence", so as to avoid uncomfortable racial inferences in light of new discoveries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.211.139.193 (talk) 11:48, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I still await your explanation at the bottom of the section above titled Possible copyright infringement, explaining to me how so. William Harris  •   talk •   12:18, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The conclusion of the paper: "Sixth, within the Villabruna Cluster, some, but not all, individuals have an affinity to east Asians." That hardly equates to "...some group with a Han Chinese connection made it's way to Europe to mix with proto-Europeans, or else the original "PIE" homeland was southern China. In either case, it appears that they brought their dogs with them." That is just personal conjecture. It remains unclear as to why "lupification of humans" and "psychological convergence" leads to "uncomfortable racial inferences in light of new discoveries." You will need to articulate what it is that you mean. William Harris  •   talk •   10:31, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

The big dog report
Hello All Origin watchers, tomorrow will see the release of the first of a series of major reports on the origin and domestication of the dog. Three years and three million dollars, over 1,500 ancient wolf and ancient dog specimens DNA sequenced, and nearly 7,000 morphometric analyses undertaken. I expect that it will have a major impact on the structure and content of the Origin article. Because there has been so much that we did not know, this article has been similar to a wide-angle lens on a camera, trying to include in the picture all that we have to work with - whether regarded by some as relevant or not - and as a result it is a large article in size. I expect that shortly we will have a narrow-angle lens to work with, which will lead to a smaller and much-better resolved article. Happy reading. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   10:41, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

SPINOFF into a new article
Hello All. Fan (2016) very recently found that the dog was a divergent subspecies of the gray wolf. (That paper further argues that the dog IS a gray wolf because there is no genomic difference between the two.) This means that the dog and the wolf have a shared history, and a new article Evolution of the wolf has been created which joins similar articles such as the Evolution of the horse, Evolution of lemurs, Evolution of mammals etc. This also means that sections of the Origin of the domestic dog where it relates to evolution with the wolf can be WP:SPINOFFed into the new article. There are two sections that shortly will join the Evolution of the wolf. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   08:44, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion - mythical dogs
I think it would be a good idea to have a section about mythical dogs or even cartoon dogs which have been a influence to people and their perspective of dogs. Famous dogs that come to mind like Lassie, Rin-Tin-Tin, UnderDog and even Pluto of Disney fame. Currently the article seems rather dry; it could use something that might be of interest to children too — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.175.117.222 (talk) 09:03, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello, thanks for your comment. The article is dry because it is science-based, only deals in facts, and is about the origin of the dog. Most of what we know comes from archaeology and genetics. If you want to talk about famous dogs then I recommend that you take your idea to the Talk:Dog page. There already exists from that page a link to List of fictional dogs. Regards,  William Harris &#124;talk 08:15, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, "mythical dogs" are simply not within the scope of an article about the origin of the domestic dog. FunkMonk (talk) 12:41, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Wolves hunt large game; however, there is no evidence of pre-sapiens hunting large game.
This assertion is plain wrong. Please search google scholar with "neanderthal hunting" as search term, and you will get numerous citations to Neanderthals (i.e. pre-sapiens) hunting large game up to and including mammoths. Even if those articles turned out to all be hogwash, this is still original research unsupported by references, and hence impermissible. Since removing the sentence does not appear to affect the remaining arguments and flow, I have deleted it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Urilabob (talk • contribs) 08:36, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The reference provided to support this statement was Tacon 2002, as cited, so I do not know where you get the phrase "this is still original research unsupported by references, and hence impermissible" from. Tacon was drawing from The Illustrated History of Humankind Volumes I and II (Burenhult), so that makes it two sources supporting this position. We do not simply remove text on Wikipedia based on one person's belief. You will need to provide a reference from a reputable source supporting what you are claiming, rather than suggesting others go and do the work. If you can find a link to a decent source, please provide it here and if you are unfamiliar with Wikipedia's citation templates WP:CITET I will put it in the correct format for you. Then, we maintain a neutral point of view WP:NPOV by reflecting both proposals and allowing the reader to form their own opinion based on the strength of the references provided and the qualifications of their authors. You would also be wise to use your search engine for "Neanderthals did not hunt big game", and have a look at the arguments from all sides, including the butchering of already-dead mammoths and the taking over of game that Smilodon had already killed - this is not hunting, this is scavenging, and we need to be clear - we need to look at the physical evidence and not just the new theories of some academics based on little or no evidence. Thanks for reading the article with such intent. Regards,  William Harris  &#124;talk 10:39, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Accusations
I see that you might be both heading towards an edit war - please try to avoid this. William, to view deletion of material as a form of vandalism (your edit summary) is incorrect, unless it is clear the editor is trying to disrupt the article. Yopienso has left edit summaries indicating their intentions about the edits they have made. Accusing an editor of being a vandal is a very serious accusation and may be viewed as a personal attack. To make it worse, you left this as an edit summary which can not be retracted by yourself. DrChrissy (talk) 23:47, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Do you have any input on the style and content I asked about? YoPienso (talk) 05:58, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I would rather not comment on that - I hope that's OK. DrChrissy (talk) 20:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Style
Thank you for correcting my mistaken insertion of the word "species"; I suggest "groups" is a better choice than "wolves." ("Populations" is really better, but is already used several times. Perhaps "clade" is better?) Except for that word, please restore my correction of your seventy-four-word sentence. The comma splice between "West Eurasian wolves" and "these were then" is a style error, and the sentence is simply too long. This is what you reverted back to:
 * This has been made more complicated by the most recent proposal that fits the available evidence, which is that an initial wolf population split into East and West Eurasian wolves, these were then domesticated independently before going extinct into two distinct dog populations between 14,000–6,400 years ago, and then the Western Eurasian dog population was partially and gradually replaced by East Asian dogs that were brought by humans at least 6,400 years ago.

This is my suggested improvement:
 * This has been made more complicated by the most recent proposal that fits the available evidence, which is that an initial wolf population split into East and West Eurasian groups; these were then domesticated independently before going extinct into two distinct dog populations between 14,000–6,400 years ago. The Western Eurasian dog population was then partially and gradually replaced by East Asian dogs that were brought by humans at least 6,400 years ago.
 * We cannot use the word clade because all of these wolves were within the one species, Canis lupus, and therefore form the one clade (which by definition also includes the maternal ancestor that gave rise to them all.) You are correct about the comma splice and that needs correction, however please note that WP:MOS is silent on the size of sentences and I can make them as long as I desire. However, I find your recommendation a good one and encourage you to make the change.

My suggestion still needs editing to clarify what is meant by "East Asian dogs that were brought by humans". Brought where?
 * The full sentence is "The Western Eurasian dog population was then partially and gradually replaced by Asian dogs that were brought by humans at least 6400 years ago." Do you really believe that there is a need to ask brought where?

Your long quote at the top of the Dog domestication section is irregular: it displaces a note that should be immediately below the section heading; it isn't incorporated into the text properly; long quotations should be blocked. I welcome input from other editors; if none if forthcoming I will create a RfC because the quote just seems misplaced.
 * This was put into place long before I learned about block quotes and that should be implemented, in addition to raising the note to its proper place - please action. That it is irregular is of no concern to me as WP:MOS does not disallow it. It provides a very good introduction to the topic by the man leading a multi-million dollar global consortium tracking down the origin of the dog. If you wish to raise an RfC that is entirely up to you, but first ask yourself is this a good leadin to this topic?

Your edit summary is off base; I'm fully aware of what I'm doing, and my edit was by no means vandalism. YoPienso (talk) 09:35, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * You have never supplied content to this article but you delete perfectly good text that were covered by two citations under the cover of an edit summary of "Editing for style". What would the reasonable person make of that, I wonder? I said what I thought at that time based on what I observed at that time, others might disagree as is their right to do so. If you did not see the relevance of the quote then I remind you that you have responsibilities regarding the conservation of its text under WP:IRRELEVANT.


 * Looking more closely at the layout of the article, I see inconsistency with "See also" and "Further information," as well as another quotation floating alone at the beginning of the "Human adoption of some wolf behaviors" subsection. Please see MOS:BODY for the accepted styles. Thanks! YoPienso (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Regarding MOS:BODY, I am always happy with the treatment of the Main but not Details, Further and Also. This is because Main clearly introduces material from a main article next, however the other 3 at the beginning of a section appears without context. For example, why would any reader who commenced reading the chapter "First dogs as a hunting technology" want to then be immediately confronted with "Further information Dog type" - we have not even introduced dog types yet. The place for it is at the bottom of the chapter and leading the reader towards the next topic. Therefore, I go with WP:BRAR. If you wish to be pedantic you may change it but ask yourself how does this enhance the reader experience?

Hello YoPienso, thankyou for your comments. My responses appear below yours in green text. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:27, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your responses! I'll go ahead and make some adjustments for your review. YoPienso (talk) 04:39, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've made four edits:
 * Changed "wolves" to "groups"; fixed the comma splice; changed "that were brought" to "introduced."
 * Incorporated first Larson quote into final lead paragraph.
 * Moved longer Larson quote to lead section of "Convergent evolution between dogs and humans."
 * Italicized that blocked quote. Not sure it should be.
 * I like epigraphs, but I've never seen one in Wikipedia or any print encyclopedia. I think they're for books or long papers. So, I opted to weave one of the quotes into the text and block the other. I don't think it's acceptable to join them into one quote, even if epigraphs were OK.
 * Please look over my edits and see what you think.
 * Greger Larson may be a candidate for a WP:BLP.
 * Happy editing! YoPienso (talk) 05:29, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello YoPienso, nice work! No, the text of the quotes is not too small, I think it is just right. I will visit WP:MOS and see what can be done regarding Details, Further and Also - it would not be the first time that I have initiated a change of MOS in concert with other editors. Shortly, I would like to call upon your editorial view of another, much shorter article if I may. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:08, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * YoPienso (talk) 14:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Charles Darwin
Good work with the article! A minor point; you've got that "In 1868, Charles Darwin wrote that some authors at the time proposed an unknown or extinct species was the ancestor of the dog." That's the year of publication, but Darwin had written and rewritten his ideas over the preceding 24 years at least. His "Essay" discusses the topic, contrasting the view of Peter Simon Pallas and others that breeds "have descended from more than one aboriginal form",  with unnamed "upholders of the view that the several breeds of dogs, horses, &c., &c., have descended each from one stock", concluding that the "evidence is so conjectural and balanced on both sides that at present I conceive that no one can decide: for my own part, I lean to the probability of most of our domestic animals having descended from more than one wild stock". In On the Origin of Species reviewed the significance of this, then on page 18 wrote that, "without here entering on any details", he could "state that, from geographical and other considerations, I think it highly probable that our domestic dogs have descended from several wild species." The details were already written in his Natural Selection manuscript, and formed the basis, after considerable development, for the relevant chapter in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. Don't know if this is of use; it may be worth noting the usefulness of harvard referencing as indicated above, which can link to the web pages concerned, and also links down to references which use "citation", or which use "cite book" and include "| ref=harv" – see w:Template:Sfn for use. Regards,. . dave souza, talk 11:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Nice editing dave, please feel free to develop as you think appropriate. It is all relevant history and covers early ideas. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:00, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits
, perhaps you might be good enough to explain: William Harris •  (talk) •  12:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * how changing a paragraph from starting with a number written as a word to written as a number is good English grammar?
 * why changing a hyperlink to a linked article into a redirect to that article is somehow an improvement?
 * how replacing a dash between two dates with the word "and" is an improvement?
 * how the term "Lead grammar and links" is in any way descriptive of these edits?
 * Writing "6 million" is clearer to the eye and common (1, 2) on biological articles. I changed the links to conform more to the words – they all still link to the same pages, however three use verbatim redirects rather than piped links, which is Wikipedia's Manual of Style. I also replaced the dash because it's Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Lastly, I added and removed commas where they should've been, grammatically. There was no basis in reverting my edit. SUM1 (talk) 12:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)


 * , thanks for your speedy reply. I have applied my comments against yours, below:


 * "Writing "6 million" is clearer to the eye and common (1, 2) on biological articles." I see no paragraph in either of the two cited articles that commence with a numeral. This article would not pass WP:GAC with a paragraph beginning with a numeral. Without entering into a discussion on good English as per the Oxford English Grammar, MOS:NUMS explicitly states that "Integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words". I encourage you to amend your edit.
 * "I changed the links to conform more to the words – they all still link to the same pages, however three use verbatim redirects rather than piped links, which is Wikipedia's Manual of Style." Regarding MOS:NOPIPE, I concur with your reasoning and you are correct.
 * "I also replaced the dash because it's Wikipedia's Manual of Style." Well no, MOS:DATERANGE states "Use a dash, or a word such as from or between". You have chosen to use a word for only one of the many date ranges in this large article. (It contrasts inconsistently with your philosophy of using a number to commence a paragraph because it "is clearer to the eye", yet you choose to replace a dash with a word - I would have thought that a dash was "clearer to the eye".) Is it your intention to now apply the same format for all of the date ranges in this article? Else, we have inconsistent date formatting, so the article would not pass WP:GAC.
 * (I note that you have not been on Wikipedia very long. Amend away - our North American cousins will slowly but surely change it all back again, either next week or next year.) William Harris •   (talk) •  09:12, 17 June 2018 (UTC)


 * "MOS:NUMS explicitly states that "Integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words"" Fine, "six" will be restored.
 * "I would have thought that a dash was "clearer to the eye"." No. I never thought or stated that I thought this looked clearer to the eye. What looks clearer to the eye here (and is grammatical) is either "between 14,000 and 6,400 years ago" OR "14,000–6,400 years ago". MOS:DATERANGE does not state that one should use either format throughout the entire article. You misinterpreted that, even though it literally says in brackets afterwards what it meant: "from 1881 to 1886 (not from 1881–1886); between June 1 and July 3 (not between June 1 – July 3)" It just states to use one or the other. I've seen both used interchangeably countless times. So, this should perfectly comply with WP:GAC.
 * "I note that you have not been on Wikipedia very long." I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. According to xtools, I've made 2,000 more mainspace edits than you and registered 4 years before you, not that it means anything. I just don't know what you meant there. And, usually my amendments pass without interference (except for when vandals disrupt the entire article). SUM1 (talk) 16:25, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * "I note that you have not been on Wikipedia very long." I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. According to xtools, I've made 2,000 more mainspace edits than you and registered 4 years before you, not that it means anything. I just don't know what you meant there. And, usually my amendments pass without interference (except for when vandals disrupt the entire article). SUM1 (talk) 16:25, 17 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Moreso than my most recently used Username, at least. William Harris •   (talk) •  12:32, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 June 2018
Change from: The origin of the domestic dog is not clear. The domestic dog is a member of the genus Canis, which forms part of the wolf-like canids, and is the most widely abundant terrestrial facultative carnivore.

Change to: The origin of the domestic dog is not clear. The domestic dog is a member of the genus Canis, which forms part of the wolf-like canids, and is the most widely abundant terrestrial facultative carnivore.

Rationale: Dogs and wild canids are not true carnivores, they are facultative carnivores. They will only eat like a carnivore when their habit requires this behavior for survival. When a wild canid takes down a kill they eat first the GI tract of the herbivore. The GI tract contains plant material eaten and partly digested. It is this material that provides the wild canid a balanced diet. Domesticated dogs are omnivores and can like their wild cousins become facultative carnivores. Preferred protein content for domesticated dogs is no greater than 30% of the daily intake. 73.181.158.166 (talk) 23:43, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made.  JTP (talk • contribs) 01:14, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

What am I missing here? Change from and to are exactly the same! Dutchy45 (talk) 23:58, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

dual domestication?! text is not very clear
The hypothesis proposed is that an initial wolf population split into East and West Eurasian wolves. These were then domesticated independently before becoming extinct.[18] The Western Eurasian dog population was then partially and gradually replaced by Asian dogs that were brought by humans at least 6400 years ago.[30][18]

The above is copied from section 2.3.3 talking about 2 domestication events but it also says they were becoming extinct. Maybe somebody with more knowledge about this than me can clear this up?Dutchy45 (talk) 23:40, 23 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Agreed, well picked up. I will go back to the refs and see exactly what they said, and clarify. The domesticated wolf populations must have given rise to a descendant - the dog - before going extinct, else there is no continuation. The article needs to say that. William Harris •   (talk) •  11:40, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Human adoption of wolf behaviors
This section seems to have problems. One example is the assertion that humans did not hunt large game prior to sapiens and the adoption of large game hunting may be attributed to dogs. Some critical selection of sources or better understanding of what is in sources seems in order here. If you include Neanderthal as sapiens then large game hunting was clearly occurring prior to dogs. If you don't include Neanderthals as sapiens then the sapiens point is moot as large game hunting was already happening prior to sapiens and dogs for that matter. The large game hunting taught by dogs is really a silly and fanciful assertion. Dates and locations of known large game hunting just don't allow for such a notion. Frankly the whole section smacks of sensationalism resulting from shabby selection of sources and possible misrepresentation of the sources. There may be some points with merit that could fit within the section title but there is clearly a lack of thought in the composition as it is now.2600:1700:6D90:79B0:D915:6D3A:63D8:B437 (talk) 02:09, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * We have been down this path before, please refer to "Wolves hunt large game; however, there is no evidence of pre-sapiens hunting large game" in the most recent archive. Based on the article as it stands, do you believe that the editor who compiled it exhibits "shabby selection of sources and possible misrepresentation of the sources"? William Harris •   (talk) •  09:04, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Why the assumption/insistence that "domestication is what made dogs different from wolves"
Why does discussion of dog domestication assume it coincided with their evolutionary descent from wolves? It seems an example of deductive myopia, of our self centered species. Wolves are actually unlike dogs in many important ways. Wolves adopt solitary, rather that pack existence, when game is plentiful. Dogs do the opposite. Only the dominant male and female wolves in a pack mate, after often violent internal status competition. From this comes the term “alpha” wolf, which is misapplied to dog social behavior.

In fact, humans have not domesticated any animal species where the parties violently compete to become the only reproductive couple. Wild boars may fight for a sow, but the loser goes on to find another. Wild horse bands have assertive stallions, but mares often choose others to mate. Wild male cats, Felis silvestris, will fight over a female in heat, but she may mate with several males during that time. In packs of feral dogs, who have reproduced in the wild for generations, mating occurs between many males and females.

There are obvious reasons why wolf-like mating makes domestication nearly impossible. First, domestication requires most members of the species to reproduce in captivity. If a dominant pair fights to prevent others from reproducing, this won’t work. Breeding requires replacing one mate with another, which rubs salt in the wound. Second, fiercely competitive animals may fight with a person, if they’re raised in captivity. Add to this that wolves rarely attack most people, but do attack small children. That makes their presence inside compounds dangerous. Nor does wolf hunting behavior help human hunters. Wolves chase large prey by frightening animal groups to flush a single target, chase for several miles, and fight other scavengers. Human hunter-gatherers approach prey silently, wound it, then exhaust the animal during long-distance tracking.

Wolves only use eye contact as an indicator of dominance or submission. Humans use eye contact to establish trust. A species that fit into human hunter-gather society needed to be trusted.

Then of course there's the genetic research, which shows both dogs and contemporary wolves evolved from extant ancestor(s). It's likely that wild dogs were the basis of dog domestication, not wolves.

To me, the insistence on wolf taming is kind of a macho thing, on a par with "man the hunter". Humans are not primarily predators, which is obvious from our teeth. But for some reason we want our ancestors to be mean, lean, hunting machines, who wrangled wolves out of the wild. What nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 08:17, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * You have asked why does discussion of dog domestication assume it coincided with their evolutionary descent from wolves? Because that is the current position held by most evolutionary biologists, as cited in the article. Nonetheless, I completely agree with you. Some evolutionary biologists do believe that genetic divergence occurred before evidence of domestication, and that is why the article is structured to accommodate these two positions. The supporters are Skoglund 2015, Botigué 2017, and Deluba 2015 from which I quote in the article:

"In August 2015, a study undertook an analysis of the complete mitogenome sequences of 555 modern and ancient dogs. The sequences showed an increase in the population size approximately 23,500 YBP, which broadly coincides with the proposed separation of the ancestors of dogs and present-day wolves before the Last Glacial Maximum (refer first divergence). A ten-fold increase in the population size occurred after 15,000 YBP, which may be attributable to domestication events and is consistent with the demographic dependence of dogs on the human population..."

For your information, there is an international consortium working on material that is indicating THREE divergence events around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (about 22,000 years ago) followed by THREE separate domestication events around 17,000-15,000 years ago, in THREE different regions! William Harris • I (talk) •  08:24, 2 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Did think comparing and contrasting canids wrt mating, submission and sustenance might be useful, but maybe a separate article on that topic exists already.}

{quote|In fact, humans have not domesticated any animal species where the parties violently compete to become the only reproductive couple.}


 * Additional evidence, that unlike other animals later, humans did not "domesticate" the wolf, but rather the wolf domesticated itself in the manner described in the article; if so, the anthropocene could be dated from when the early garbage dumps impacted the evolution of terrestrial ecology. Or we can see them as co-evolving domestication together.


 * Would like to insert the finding that, for about 100,000 years before either species showed much sign of "domestication" (such as decreased brain capacity) anatomically modern human and wolf populations shared the same afro-eurasion range, but I can't remember the reference (It might have been a Scientific American book, on, of all things, the human mind.).


 * Hello ‎Larixiral. The article is about the origin of the dog but not canid matings etc. I believe the Anthropocene era does coincide with the rise of agriculture, please see that article. Although there are "wolves" in Africa i.e. Ethiopian wolf, we are not sure when it arrived there from Eurasia. You will need to find a good, current scientific reference to get something reflected in this article. William Harris •   (talk) •  07:30, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

This article is wrong
This article is wrong. Just plain wrong. From the earliest mtDNA studies of dogs and wolves it has been clear that all the wolves DNA clusters together into a single group, whereas the dog DNA contains many outliers that are not at all similar to those of the wolves or other dogs. In short, wolves evolved from a subspecies of dog, not the other way around. In other words, the separation of the dog into different subspecies must have occurred long before the separation of the wolf into separate subspecies, for example 36,900-41,500 years ago, as against a first separation of wolf species about 12,500 years ago. The wikipedia article on the dog used to contain both points of view - that the wolf evolved from the dog vs the dog from the wolf - with a note that there was controversy in deciding which was correct. That was fine. But now the correct version has been expunged from wikipedia leaving only the completely wrong version. Mollwollfumble (talk) 06:33, 10 January 2019 (UTC)


 * All you need to do is WP:CITE current expert WP:RELIABLE sources which other editors can WP:VERIFY and it will be included. All we have is your believe that the article may have said something different in the past. There are certainly a lot of current citations supporting the position expressed in the article. (Nobody cares what very short lengths of mDNA suggested in the past - we seek whole genome sequencing today.) William Harris •   (talk) •  07:46, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Humans as "First Domesticated Species"
Last month Harvard geneticist Richard Wrangham published his latest book, which makes a compelling case for an idea first proposed in the 1800s, that homo sapiens should be considered the quote "first domesticated species." We have an article about this at Self-domestication. One of the more striking examples to illustrate the idea is that 100 adult humans packed onto a plane arrive safely all the time, whereas if you managed to get 100 adult chimpanzees onto an airplane, a good number would have killed each other by the flight's destination. This is relevant here because there are two spots on this article (in the lead and in the Genetic evidence section) that say "The dog was the first species to be domesticated," and I'd like to just add "by man" to the end of those two phrases in order to clarify. Does anyone have a strong opposition to this?-- Patrick, o Ѻ ∞ 17:26, 27 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Please refer to the article on Domestication, the first sentence. Wrangham's view does not fit the accepted definition. William Harris •   (talk) •  09:11, 28 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Right, it is an expansive definition. I don't think you have to necessarily agree 100%, I'm suggesting revising the two "first species domesticated" phrases to "first species domesticated by man" so as not to contradict those views and that definition, and I don't think it changes the meaning of the sentence here.-- Patrick, o Ѻ ∞ 15:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC)


 * A further extension of Wrangham's theory would be that wolves domesticated themselves - and some evolutionary biologists propose just that. I have no issue with your edit but I doubt its longevity. Sooner or later, some other editor will remove it with the edit summary along the lines of "who else does domestication". I have been on this page for some time, and have seen these things come and go. Feel free. William Harris •   (talk) •  21:57, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

First sentence
To start the article with "The origin of the domestic dog is not clear" seems very poor indeed. Much is known about the origin of the domestic dog, hence the extensive article, and "not clear" is not a helpful summary of the state of the knowledge. If the sentence were simply omitted, the article would be much improved. 51.7.229.129 (talk) 22:51, 27 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The first sentence that you commented upon has been around for some time and outdated. The new first sentence is more descriptive of what the article is about as per MOS:INTRO. This article is currently undergoing a review, which needs to be conducted every 18 months or so due to the advances in what science now tells us. Therefore, much of the content in the lede paragraphs will be amended shortly. Thanks for your comment and interest in the article. William Harris •   (talk) •  08:53, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Canid and Human Evolution
From that section of the article:

"Human hunter-gathers did not live in fear of nature and knew that they posed a formidable risk to any potential predators. The Ju'wasi people of Namibia share their land with prides of lions. Both species coexist with respect and without fear or hostility in a relationship that may go back to the dawn of modern humans. The lion is a larger and far more dangerous predator than the wolf."

The first sentence especially, and the paragraph generally, seems unsubstantiated, improbable, and tangential to the article's topic.

Lmcg182 (talk) 01:52, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Which part do you believe is unsubstantiated? It is from Pierotti & Fog, who in their book cite expert sources upon whom they have relied. The Ju'wasi are still hunter-gatherers today - is there nothing to be learned from them in their relationship with a large and dangerous predator? Is the early relationship between humans and wolves not the article's topic? Plus we commence with "Canid and Human Evolution" and almost end with "Dog and human convergent evolution", we have come almost a full circle in this story. William Harris •   (talk) •  03:29, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * May I add that there is no proof for evolution. Can we please take this off and just admit that no one knows where it all began? Evolution really has nothing to do with dogs unless proven. I suggest we have it as "the origins of domesticated dogs are not really know because there are no historical records to show us. However, several religious and ancient artifacts show different details of what the origins may be." Then we can list different views such as Atheistic Views and Religious View.TruthLighter3740


 * Wikipedia is an interconnected project; all you need to do is to convince the good folk over at Human evolution to change their position. Reducing the entire article to just one sentence by deleting everything else will have little longevity. In the northeast of the US is a newly evolved creature called an Eastern coyote that did not exist 70 years ago. It is 2/3 coyote, 1/4 wolf and 10% dog. It is bigger than a western coyote, can survive off small game similar to a coyote, will form a pack to bring down large game similar to a wolf, and has appeared in the city of New York as it is unafraid of humans similar to a dog. It breeds true; it commenced as a hybrid but now eastern coyote parents produce eastern coyote offspring. It is an adaptation to a new environment that we humans have created. This is evolution in action - we should not deny what our own eyes can see. William Harris •   (talk) •  21:17, 30 March 2019 (UTC)