West Africa's prehistoric metalworkers

 

The discovery of a 2,400-year-old metalworking workshop in Senegal provides new insights into the history of iron production in Africa.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Université de Genève

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Photograph taken during the discovery of a pile of used tuyères, featuring intriguing transverse perforations, for photogrammetry purposes.

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Credit: © Anne Mayor

Despite decades of archaeological research, the origins of iron metallurgy in sub-Saharan Africa remain largely unclear. Yet this technological revolution—crucial for producing efficient agricultural tools—emerged there at least 3,000 years ago. While investigating an archaeological site in eastern Senegal, an international team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) uncovered exceptionally well-preserved remains of an ironworking workshop dating back to the 4th century BCE and used for nearly eight centuries. The discovery, published in African Archaeological Review, provides new insights into late prehistoric metallurgical practices in Africa.

In Europe, the Iron Age is generally dated from around 800 BCE to the end of the 1st century CE. However, these chronological frameworks vary widely across different regions of the world. The earliest evidence for iron production is thought to date to the 2nd millennium BCE in Anatolia—modern-day Turkey—and the Caucasus. This technique spread from there to Europe, but did it develop independently in Africa? The question remains open.

Excavations carried out by a team coordinated by UNIGE, in partnership with the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Dakar, shed new light new light on the emergence of iron metallurgy in West Africa. At the site of Didé West 1 (DDW1), near the Falémé River valley in eastern Senegal, archaeologists uncovered an exceptionally well-preserved iron-smelting workshop in 2018 that was in use from the 4th century BCE to the 4th century CE. Its longevity is particularly striking, as such sites are typically used for only a few generations.

Well-preserved “tuyères” and bloomery furnaces 

The workshop consists of a large heap containing around a hundred tons of slag, a semicircular arrangement of about thirty used “tuyères”—clay pipes that channel air into the furnace—and 35 circular furnace bases, each approximately 30 cm deep. This iron and steel production was likely carried out on a small scale to meet local needs, particularly for the manufacture of agricultural tools.

“Thanks to its exceptional state of preservation, its age, the length of time it remained in use, and its distinctive technical features, this site is truly unique. It offers a rare opportunity to study the continuity and adaptation of an iron smelting technique over the long term,” says Mélissa Morel, postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Archaeology of Africa & Anthropology (ARCAN) within the Biology Section of the Faculty of Science at UNIGE, and lead author of the article.

Documenting practices 

Since 2012, the team has been studying both past and present techniques used by potters and blacksmiths in the Falémé Valley. The work of its members has identified several distinct ancient traditions of iron‑ore smelting. At DDW1, the spatial organisation, furnace morphology and associated waste products point to the tradition known as FAL02. It is characterised by small circular furnaces topped with a removable chimney, as well as large clay “tuyères”. A key feature is that these “tuyères” do not have a single air outlet but multiple small openings connected to the main channel by perpendicular side ducts. This design allows air to be distributed to the bottom of the furnace. Another distinctive characteristic is the use of palm nut seeds as packing material at the base of the furnace—a practice not previously documented.

“Despite the very long period during which this workshop operated, this tradition remained remarkably stable, undergoing only minor technical adjustments. This continuity contrasts with other African metallurgical contexts and highlights the importance of understanding the technical and cultural choices made by early metallurgists in iron production,” explains Anne Mayor, director of the ARCAN laboratory in the Biology Section of the Faculty of Science at UNIGE and senior lecturer and researcher at the Global Studies Institute, who led the project.

The team’s research is continuing at other sites in Senegal to compare smelting practices and gain a better understanding of how ironworking techniques developed and spread. To date, only around a dozen sites dating to the first millennium BCE have been well documented and reliably dated across West Africa.

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Journal

African Archaeological Review

DOI

10.1007/s10437-026-09653-z 

Tasmanian tiger lives on in Arnhem Land rock art

Newly discovered rock art depicting Tasmanian tigers and Tasmanian devils in northern Australia is providing fresh insights into their cultural importance and when they may have last roamed mainland Australia.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Griffith University

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Injalak Hill Large Naturalistic style thylacine with sharp teeth 

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Credit: photo: Craig Banggar

The striped dog-like marsupial we know as the Tasmanian tiger has long been surrounded by mystery, and the subject of scientific curiosity. 

Now, newly discovered rock art depicting Tasmanian tigers and Tasmanian devils in northern Australia is providing fresh insights into their cultural importance and when they may have last roamed mainland Australia. 

The project, led by Griffith University Chair in Rock Art Research, Professor Paul Taçon, in partnership with Traditional Owners, documented 14 new images of the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, as it also known, and two of the Tasmanian devils from two locations in northwest Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. 

Tasmanian devils and thylacines are widely believed to have disappeared from mainland Australia about 3,000 years ago. The newly documented artworks—some of which may be less than 1,000 years old—raise the possibility that these species survived longer in northern regions than previously thought. 

The paintings recorded were in various Aboriginal art styles, made with red, sometimes yellow ochre since about 15,000 years ago.  

The artists also used white pipe clay, which does not last as long or stain the rock as red ochre does, so most paintings with white were thought to be less than 1,000 years old. 

Professor Taçon said thylacines were more widespread and more culturally important across mainland Australia than Tasmanian devils, as only 25 Tasmanian devil images had been documented versus more than 160 thylacine depictions. 

"The artists who made the more recent paintings may have seen actual living thylacines and some of these creatures may have survived longer in Arnhem Land,” Professor Taçon said. 

“Alternatively, artists may have been inspired by earlier paintings. 

“Regardless, the thylacine remains culturally important today and some contemporary artists make paintings of Tasmanian tigers on bark, paper and canvas.  

“It even has a name: Djankerrk.”   

Co-author, Dr Andrea Jalandoni, from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, added there were paintings in the area that had been retouched, which showed the significance of these animals across generations. 

“Thylacine rock art offers rare insight into how people related to this animal in the past,” Dr Jalandoni said. 

“These depictions show that the thylacine held a meaningful place in everyday life and local knowledge long before it went extinct.”  

In oral histories of the region, thylacines were pets of the Rainbow Serpent and lived in rock pools.  They were often associated with bodies of water and swimming. 

Joey Nganjmirra, a Djalama man from Western Arnhem Land and co-author of the study, said the creatures were very much a part of his ancestors' lives. 

“They used to tell stories about going hunting with thylacines,” Mr Nganjmirra said. 

Professor Taçon said the team’s collaborative research showed the thylacine had contemporary relevance in the region, not just for scientists but also for traditional community members.  

“The thylacine lives on in western Arnhem Land not as a ghost from the past but as a meaningful creature that still has present-day significance,” he said. 

‘The Devil Is in the Detail: Tasmanian Devil and Tasmanian Tiger Paintings From Awunbarna and Injalak Hill, Northern Territory, Australia’ has been published in Archaeology in Oceania. 

The striped dog-like marsupial we know as the Tasmanian tiger has long been surrounded by mystery, and the subject of scientific curiosity. 

Now, newly discovered rock art depicting Tasmanian tigers and Tasmanian devils in northern Australia is providing fresh insights into their cultural importance and when they may have last roamed mainland Australia. 

The project, led by Griffith University Chair in Rock Art Research, Professor Paul Taçon, in partnership with Traditional Owners, documented 14 new images of the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, as it also known, and two of the Tasmanian devils from two locations in northwest Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. 

Tasmanian devils and thylacines are widely believed to have disappeared from mainland Australia about 3,000 years ago. The newly documented artworks—some of which may be less than 1,000 years old—raise the possibility that these species survived longer in northern regions than previously thought. 

The paintings recorded were in various Aboriginal art styles, made with red, sometimes yellow ochre since about 15,000 years ago.  

The artists also used white pipe clay, which does not last as long or stain the rock as red ochre does, so most paintings with white were thought to be less than 1,000 years old. 

Professor Taçon said thylacines were more widespread and more culturally important across mainland Australia than Tasmanian devils, as only 25 Tasmanian devil images had been documented versus more than 160 thylacine depictions. 

"The artists who made the more recent paintings may have seen actual living thylacines and some of these creatures may have survived longer in Arnhem Land,” Professor Taçon said. 

“Alternatively, artists may have been inspired by earlier paintings. 

“Regardless, the thylacine remains culturally important today and some contemporary artists make paintings of Tasmanian tigers on bark, paper and canvas.  

“It even has a name: Djankerrk.”   

Co-author, Dr Andrea Jalandoni, from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, added there were paintings in the area that had been retouched, which showed the significance of these animals across generations. 

“Thylacine rock art offers rare insight into how people related to this animal in the past,” Dr Jalandoni said. 

“These depictions show that the thylacine held a meaningful place in everyday life and local knowledge long before it went extinct.”  

In oral histories of the region, thylacines were pets of the Rainbow Serpent and lived in rock pools.  They were often associated with bodies of water and swimming. 

Joey Nganjmirra, a Djalama man from Western Arnhem Land and co-author of the study, said the creatures were very much a part of his ancestors' lives. 

“They used to tell stories about going hunting with thylacines,” Mr Nganjmirra said. 

Professor Taçon said the team’s collaborative research showed the thylacine had contemporary relevance in the region, not just for scientists but also for traditional community members.  

“The thylacine lives on in western Arnhem Land not as a ghost from the past but as a meaningful creature that still has present-day significance,” he said. 

‘The Devil Is in the Detail: Tasmanian Devil and Tasmanian Tiger Paintings From Awunbarna and Injalak Hill, Northern Territory, Australia’ has been published in Archaeology in Oceania. 

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Journal

Archaeology in Oceania

DOI

10.1002/arco.70024 

3,500-year-old loom reveals key aspects of textile revolution in the Bronze Age

 

The finding, published in an article in the journal Antiquity, preserves most of the weights as well as components made from wood and plant fibers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Alicante

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Reconstruction of a Bronze Age loom by Beate Schneider, on display at the Alcoy Archaeological Museum.

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Credit: University of Alicante

Approximately 3,500 years ago, in the Bronze Age settlement of Cabezo Redondo in present-day Villena, a fire razed dwellings and workshops to the ground. However, the same fire that destroyed part of the village also helped preserve an object that is incredibly hard to document in archaeology: a loom with a largely wooden structure.

Recently published in the journal Antiquity, this finding by a team of researchers from several Spanish universities is one of only a few known cases in Mediterranean Europe in which both the set of loom weights and components made from wood and plant fibres have been preserved. The article is authored by University of Alicante (UA) researchers Gabriel García Atiénzar, Paula Martín de la Sierra Pareja, Virginia Barciela González and Mauro S. Hernández Pérez, Ricardo Basso Rial (University of Granada) and Yolanda Carrión Marco (Universitat de València).

UA Professor of Prehistory Gabriel García Atiénzar explains that the fire generated a very specific archaeological context where “the collapse of the ceiling was crucial […] resulting in a sealed space in which the area was suddenly destroyed and immediately buried, enabling its preservation”. The loom components – including charred timbers, clay weights and esparto ropes – were trapped beneath the remains of the collapsed ceiling.

The loom appeared during the excavation of a circulation area on the western slope of the settlement, where the researchers found a raised platform with a dense concentration of clay weights. According to University of Granada predoctoral researcher Ricardo Basso Rial, this evidence allowed the team to identify the device with a high degree of certainty, as “although the loom was recovered from a collapsed area and some pieces were missing, the compact set of 44 cylindrical weights with a central perforation, most of them about 200 grams in weight, is characteristic of a vertical warp-weighted loom”.

Several pine timbers in a parallel arrangement were discovered alongside the weights. Some of the thicker timbers, with a rectangular cross-section, are probably the remains of the upright posts of the loom frame; other narrower pieces, with a rounded cross-section, supposedly constitute the horizontal posts.

The researchers also identified plaited esparto fibres associated with the structure, and even remains of small cords in the perforations of some weights, likely used to warp the warp threads to each loom weight. Thanks to this combination of weights, timbers and fibres, the researchers have been able to accurately determine how the loom worked, which is highly unusual in prehistoric contexts.

The archaeobotanist Yolanda Carrión (Universitat de València) analysed the wooden pieces. “The preservation of the organic elements was due to the fire that charred the remains and to the fact that these remains were practically unaltered later. Paradoxically, the fire both destroyed and preserved the site”, she says.

It was concluded from the microscopic study of the wood that the loom was made from Aleppo pine, widely found in the surrounding area. According to Carrión, the observation of the growth rings suggests that the timbers came from long-lived trees that provided large-diameter pieces of wood, which indicates that the material was carefully selected.  The researcher adds that “the arrangement of wooden components of various sizes, assembled with each other and resting on a wall, and the presence of the weights allow us to develop a robust hypothesis about the morphology of the loom”.

The loom was part of a wider process known as the “textile revolution” in the European Bronze Age, characterised by technological and economic changes in textile production.

For Ricardo Basso, this process was not driven by a single factor: “the textile revolution was the result of a combination of processes, including the expansion of livestock breeding for wool production, technical innovations in looms and spinning and weaving tools, and social changes that led to more intensive and diversified textile production”.

At Cabezo Redondo, these transformations are inferred from the presence of new forms of lighter spindle whorls and various types of loom weights. Some of them are lightweight enough to allow for the production of finer, more complex fabrics, such as twills. However, the fabrics themselves are rarely preserved in archaeological settings, and therefore many of these deductions are based on the indirect study of tools.

For this reason, the loom recovered from Cabezo Redondo is especially valuable, allowing researchers to “go from interpreting isolated loom weights to documenting a working loom with extreme detail: the wooden structure, the ropes, the weights and the architectural context”, Basso argues.

The context in which the loom appeared also provides information on the social organisation of work. The device was located in an outdoor space shared by several households, which suggests that production was a cooperative effort. “This indicates that different household groups may have collaborated on activities such as spinning, weaving and milling”, as noted by Paula Martín de la Sierra, a predoctoral researcher at the UA Institute for Archaeology and Heritage Research (INAPH) and research team member. “Other artisanal activities in the village, such as metalwork or ivory craftsmanship, seem to have been concentrated in specialised areas”, she adds.

Bioanthropological evidence also points to a central role of women in textile activities. In several graves at the site, teeth recovered from female remains have a degree of wear characteristically associated with spinning and weaving, as these women probably used their incisors to hold fibres in place or cut threads.

Cabezo Redondo settlement

Cabezo Redondo was not an isolated village, but a key regional hub. Its size and continued occupation, as well as the presence of monumental structures, suggest that it had a major political and economic role in the south-eastern area of the Iberian Peninsula during the second millennium BCE.

While there are similarities to the well-known Argaric culture, the researchers think that the settlement dates from a later, “post-Argaric” period. The famous Cabezo Redondo treasure is likely contemporary to the loom.

In the researchers’ view, the finding opens up new lines of research. Future studies may include archaeometric analyses of microscopic fibres or isotopic studies of sheep to determine the origin of the raw materials and the degree of specialisation of textile production.

In the meantime, the Cabezo Redondo loom is already one of the most complete examples of textile technology in the European Bronze Age. As pointed out by Basso, the settlement has become “an exceptional laboratory to study the technical and social evolution of textiles in the second millennium BCE”.

Cabezo Redondo is a major Bronze Age settlement in the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula. Systematic excavations started in 1960 under the direction of local researcher José María Soler, who intervened to prevent the destruction of the site by gypsum quarries.

From 1987 onwards, excavation campaigns at the site were led by Mauro S. Hernández. A team made up of INAPH researchers Gabriel García Atiénzar, Virginia Barciela González and others was set up afterwards.

Occupied approximately between 2100 and 1250 BCE, the settlement had a size of up to one hectare. The dwellings, built on a series of terraces on the slope of the hill, had workbenches, fireplaces, silos and receptacles for storage. The analysis of plant and animal remains indicates that the economy was based on intensive farming.

Moreover, numerous findings such as gold, silver and ivory ornaments or glass and seashell beads, among others, prove that the settlement was part of large exchange networks that connected it with other areas of the Iberian Peninsula, the Eastern Mediterranean and even Central Europe.

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Journal

Antiquity

DOI

10.15184/aqy.2026.10312 

Surprising similarities among ancient writing systems from Africa and the Caucasus region of Eurasia

  

Caption

From left, characters in the Ethiopic (portions only), Armenian, Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets. 

Credit

Daniel Zemene, Esatu Zemene, Atharv Sankpal, Eskinder Sahle, Vyshak Athreya Bellur Keshavamurthy, Samuel Kinde Kassegne, Machine learning techniques for exploring influence, commonalities, and shared origin of scripts: cases of Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, and Caucasian Albanian scripts, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2026;, fqag029, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqag029

With artificial intelligence (AI) as an essential tool, San Diego State University researchers have discovered surprising similarities among ancient writing systems from Africa and the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Their study suggests the Armenian alphabet may be more closely related in structure to the ancient Ethiopic writing system than linguists and historians previously thought.

For many years, historians noticed some Armenian, Georgian and Caucasian Albanian letters look similar to letters from Ethiopic, also known as Ge’ez, a writing system developed in the Horn of Africa more than 1,600 years ago. 

Most of these early studies, however, relied on scholars’ own visual inspection of the letters to determine whether they appeared alike.

Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering tested this idea using AI instead of human judgment. They trained a computer program to study more than 28,000 images of Ethiopic characters so it could learn the basic shapes and patterns in the writing system. The program learned to recognize curves, straight lines, angles and the overall structure of each letter.

Importantly, the computer had no data on history, religion, geography or culture. It only looked at shapes. After learning the Ethiopic characters, the program compared them to letters from the Armenian, Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets. It then calculated how similar the shapes were.

The results, published March 25 in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, were striking. 

Among the three alphabets tested, Armenian letters showed the strongest similarity to Ethiopic letters. Caucasian Albanian letters showed a moderate level of similarity, while Georgian letters showed some similarities but were less consistent. As a comparison, the researchers also tested the Latin alphabet — the one used in English — and found it showed much lower similarity.

“Our aim was to move beyond visual impressions that are difficult to test or replicate,” said Sam Kassegne, a professor of mechanical engineering and lead investigator. “By making our criteria explicit and mathematical, we introduced an objective computational approach that is easily reproducible. We believe that this reproducibility is the key contribution of our method.”

New findings

One of the most surprising findings was that the Armenian alphabet appeared almost as similar to Ethiopic as Ethiopic is to its own earlier version. That suggests the resemblance may not be accidental.

The Armenian alphabet was created around 405 CE. Around that same time, the Ethiopic writing system was expanding and becoming more widely used. Historical records show people from Ethiopia traveled to such places as Jerusalem, Egypt and Syria during this period. The creator of the Armenian alphabet, Mesrop Mashtots, also traveled through parts of the Middle East. While the study does not prove one writing system copied the other, it suggests cultural contact and influence between these regions may have been possible.

The study also shows how modern technology can help answer ancient questions. 

We are already familiar with AI being used for self-driving cars and medical imaging. In this case, it was used to study the shapes of letters from ages ago revealing some level of historical cultural interactions. By teaching a computer to carefully measure similarities, researchers were able to move beyond the limitations of visual impressions and provide numerical evidence.

Daniel Zemene, an SDSU graduate student and AI and machine learning researcher at SDSU’s NanoFAB Lab, emphasized the broader implications of the findings.

“What makes the research significant is that computational geometry and historical scholarship converge on the same scripts and time period,” said Zemene, the study’s first author. 

“The model had no access to historical records, yet it learned purely from visual and structural data and identified Armenian as the closest structural match to Ethiopic within the very timeframe historians have long debated. That convergence between computation and history is powerful.”

The researchers emphasize similarity does not automatically mean direct borrowing. However, the findings make it more reasonable to consider that these cultures may have influenced one another. Throughout history, societies have shared ideas, including systems of writing. Greek, Roman, Persian and Arabic civilizations all influenced one another in different ways.

This new research suggests Ethiopia’s ancient writing culture may also have played a meaningful role in the exchange of ideas across regions. It also shows AI is not just about modern technology, but a tool that can help us understand literary heritage with a new level of precision.
 

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Journal

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

DOI

10.1093/llc/fqag029 

Ancient DNA reveals earliest known dogs lived alongside Ice Age humans

 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of York

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14,300-year-old dog jawbone from Gough’s Cave, UK © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

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Credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

The bond between humans and dogs is one of nature’s most enduring partnerships, but exactly when it began has long been a mystery. Now, a new study has turned back the clock. 

By uncovering the earliest genetic evidence of domestic dogs to date, researchers have found that our 'best friends' were already living alongside us more than 14,000 years ago - redefining our understanding of how this ancient relationship first took root.

The international research team uncovered the earliest genetic evidence for the existence of dogs, suggesting they were already living alongside humans more than 14,000 years ago.

Researchers analysed ancient DNA from animal remains found at archaeological sites in the UK and Türkiye, dating to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period, long before the advent of farming.

They found that bones recovered from Gough’s Cave and Pınarbaşı belonged to early dogs, pushing back confirmed evidence of domesticated dogs by more than 5,000 years.

Professor Oliver Craig, from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology and Director of the BioArch Centre, explains: “We have long believed dogs evolved from grey wolves during the last Ice Age, but physical evidence of their association with humans has been difficult to confirm.

“During the earliest stages of domestication, dogs and wolves looked almost identical, and behavioural differences do not show up in the archaeological record.”

Previous studies relied on small DNA fragments and skeletal measurements. This new study, however, was able to reconstruct whole genomes from remains more than 10,000 years old and compared them with over 1,000 modern and ancient canids.

The findings confirmed that dogs were already widespread across Europe and western Asia by at least 14,000 years ago.

At the University of York, scientists conducted a dietary analysis of dog, human and wolf remains from the same archaeological sites.

By measuring carbon and nitrogen isotopes preserved in bone collagen – chemical signatures that reflect long-term diet – they were able to reconstruct what these animals and people ate.

Lizzie Hodgson, PhD student from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, said: “A key finding came from Pınarbaşı, where the data showed that domestic dogs consumed a diet rich in fish, closely matching that of local humans.

“It is unlikely dogs were catching significant amounts of fish themselves, suggesting they were being actively fed by people.”

This shared diet provides strong evidence of a close and cooperative relationship between humans and dogs during the Ice Age.

Dr William Marsh, from the Natural History Museum, said: “These specimens allowed us to identify additional ancient dogs from sites in Germany, Italy and Switzerland, showing they were already widely dispersed across Europe and Türkiye by at-least 14,000 years ago.”

The study suggests that dogs were present among different hunter-gatherer groups, including Epigravettian and Magdalenian communities, towards the end of the Ice Age.

Genetic analysis revealed that these early dogs were more closely related to the ancestors of modern European and Middle Eastern breeds than to Arctic dogs.

Dr Lachie Scarsbrook, from LMU Munich, said this indicates that major dog lineages were already established around 15,000 years ago. He said: “Dogs with very different ancestries already existed across Eurasia, from Somerset to Siberia.”

Experts say this raises the possibility that dogs were domesticated more than 10,000 years before any other animals or plants.

Alongside the genetic work, researchers also examined how these early dogs and humans may have lived together. While the exact role of these early dogs remains unclear, researchers believe they were closely integrated into human communities.

Further evidence, including intentional burial of dogs, points to possible emotional or cultural significance.

A dog jawbone from Gough’s Cave – dating to around 15,000 years ago – is now considered the earliest known domesticated dog in the UK.  Researchers say the discovery highlights the deep and long-standing relationship between humans and dogs, stretching back to the end of the last Ice Age.

Dr Sophy Charlton, from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, said: “This study reveals the beginnings of a human and canine bond that continues to this day. It’s a narrative that began towards the end of the Ice Age but was foundational to many of the modern breeds we see today.”

The study, titled Dogs were widely distributed in Western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic, is published in the journal Nature, alongside related research exploring the genetic history of early dogs across Europe.