Humans may have formed close and sustained relationships with gray wolves thousands of years before dogs became fully domesticated, according to a new scientific study that challenges long-held assumptions about how the world’s first domestic animal emerged.
The research, published Nov. 24, 2025, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is based on genetic, isotopic, and archaeological analysis of ancient wolf remains discovered on Stora Karlsö, a small island in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden.
The study was led by Linus Girdland-Flink, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Aberdeen, together with Anders Bergström of the University of East Anglia, Jan Storå of Stockholm University, and researchers from several European institutions, including the Francis Crick Institute.
Life Like People
Scientists analyzed the remains of two canids dated to between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago, recovered from Stora Förvar cave, a site known to have been used by prehistoric seal hunters and fishing communities. The island has no native land mammals, leading researchers to conclude that the wolves could not have arrived there naturally.
“The only plausible explanation is that humans transported these animals to the island,” said Girdland-Flink. “That alone implies a level of interaction and control that is highly unusual for wild wolves.”
Genomic testing confirmed that the animals were true gray wolves, with no detectable ancestry from domestic dogs. Yet other evidence suggests they lived in close association with humans. Stable isotope analysis of their bones revealed a diet rich in marine protein, closely matching that of the human population inhabiting the island at the time.
“That tells us these wolves were eating the same food as people,” said Storå, a professor of osteoarchaeology. “They were not surviving independently as wild predators.”
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Not a Single Domestication
One of the wolf skeletons also showed signs of a severe leg injury that would likely have made hunting impossible. Despite this, the animal survived long enough for the bone to partially heal — a finding the researchers say strongly suggests human care or provisioning.
Pontus Skoglund, senior author of the study and a geneticist at the Francis Crick Institute, said the findings point to a more complex and varied history of human–wolf interactions than previously recognized.
“This does not mean these wolves were dogs,” Skoglund said. “But it shows that humans may have been managing, keeping, or tolerating wolves within their communities well before dogs emerged as a distinct domesticated species.”
Scientists generally agree that dogs were domesticated from wolves at least 15,000 years ago, though where and how that process occurred remains debated. The new findings suggest domestication may not have been a single, linear event but rather the outcome of multiple experiments in coexistence between humans and wolves across different regions and periods.
Researchers caution that the study does not prove wolves were domesticated before dogs. Instead, it highlights a previously undocumented stage of interaction — one in which wolves may have lived alongside humans under varying degrees of control, dependence, or cooperation.
The authors say these early relationships may have laid important groundwork for the eventual emergence of dogs, reshaping how scientists understand the deep evolutionary bond between humans and canids. (Sulung Prasetyo)
