Ice Age Hunters May Have Shared Meat With Wolves

HELSINKI, FINLAND—Archaeologist Maria Lahtinen of the Finnish Food Authority suggests that Ice Age hunters probably had a surplus of lean meat to feed wolves and even captured wolf pups, according to a Science News report. The wolves would have been able to digest more lean protein than the humans, who may have been more interested in acquiring fatty marrow and grease from animal bones to meet their energy needs when the carbohydrate supply ran low during winter months. Feeding the wolves would have also reduced competition for prey and the need to kill wolves. The process may have eventually led to the two predators hunting together and dog domestication, Lahtinen explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Scientific Reports. To read about remains of butchered wolves and dogs discovered at a Bronze Age site on the Russian steppe, go to "Wolf Rites of Winter."