Dogs Were Man's Best Friend Even 9,400 Years Ago

PORTLAND, Maine -- Nearly 10,000 years ago, man's best friend provided protection and companionship - and an occasional meal.

That's what researchers are saying after finding a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.

University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog - not a wolf, coyote or fox, Belknap said.

Because it was found deep inside a pile of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown color that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract, the fragment provides the earliest direct evidence that dogs - besides being used for company, security and hunting - were eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source, he said.

Source

Wow, that's old

A well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth that is believed to be about 1 million years old has been unearthed in eastern Serbia.

The skeleton was found 89 feet below ground. The mammoth was more than 13 feet high, 16 feet long and weighed more than 10 tons.

Source