The Edge of the Ice
by Bannager Bong
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I read an article in the journal, Science, published in 2002. It was entitled, "Genetic evidence for an East Asian origin of domestic dogs". The article presented the results of a mitochondrial DNA study of dog populations world wide. The study found that all dogs are descended from 3 to 5 female wolves who lived in what is now China, 15,000 years ago. That got me thinking. First, I thought: 15,000 years is a long time. Agriculture is only 8,000 years or so old. 15,000 years ago the last glaciation period was just ending. The first humans were just expanding over the continents. They were ice-age hunters with stone spear points and other stone tools. What were THEY thinking? They surely didn't wake up one day and decide to catch some wolves and see what happened. There were no, and never had been any, pets. Life was hard enough without trying to deal with other species, other than as food, of course. And yet, we have dogs today and we now know that they had dogs 15,000 years ago. But, of course, like our own, human, Eve, a hundred fifty thousand years ago in Africa, this must only have been the genealogy that survived. Over tens of thousands of years there must have been many "hook ups" because that's how things work.
And that's the second thing that occurred to me: 15,000 years really isn't that long at all. In evolutionary terms, 15,000 years ago people were pretty much just like us. And wolves then were pretty much like wolves today. People then would have behaved like people today behave. They loved their children. They were afraid of things that still frighten us today, like wolves. They were fascinated by things that still fascinate us, like wolves. They would have recognized a good thing when they saw it. And, let's face it: dogs are a good thing. They've been with us in everything we've done since the ice age. They've helped us hunt, farm, fight. And wolves then, too, lived like wolves live now. They had packs, and leaders. They were smart, opportunistic hunters. They also would have recognized a good thing when they saw it.
So how did they hook up, these two groups of ice-age hunters? How did it happen that they would both see a "good thing" in an association? I figured that, unlike the agricultural domestications that were still millennia in the future, the man-wolf linkage is entirely mutual. They both entered into the arrangement willingly, equally, and essentially for the same reason. They might just have been in the right place at the right time. Maybe, many times when that happened, either the human, or the wolf, or both, would have been unprepared to accept something new. But sometimes, just the right individuals found themselves in a situation that lent itself to the partnership, and both were ready to seize it. They would have to have both seen the benefit of a cooperation that turned out to be so successful that their descendents today cooperate in all activities of our common lives. So how did it happen?
Science cannot tell us. There is no data. Science deals with models. The models are constructed out of elements that we, or at least the scientists, understand: spheres, particles bouncing on springs, vectors. When the model produces the same data as reality, we can conclude, with some justification, that the behavior of the model that produces those data is likely to be the same as the behavior of The Truth. It's powerful stuff but it needs data. Out there on the edge of the ice, back then, there's no data for us to work with. That's where fiction comes in. While science is about what we know, fiction is about what we believe. It's ironic: science is about metaphor while fiction is about the Truth. This is a work of fiction.

Completed 2005.
Wolves and people like to bond. In a way that is qualitatively different from the way other animals group together, wolves, and other canids, share with people a characteristic behavior of group living. Within the group, they bond tightly, protective and loyal. Outside of the group, they are suspicious of the Other, even hostile. The group is not just a living arrangement, as it seems to be with other animal groupings, including primates. The group has a structure that extends to all the activities of its members' lives. Whether hunting, or defending, or attacking, the members of the group have distinct and complementary roles that makes the ensemble more complex, more powerful than just a collection of members.
It's dangerous to resort to physics analogies but I can't help it. Nuclear particles are subject to a force that tries to keep them apart. This force is very powerful in a range that is large relative to the size of a nucleus. But, if that force can be overcome, if the particles can breech the barrier that that force erects and get closer, there is an even stronger force, that operates on that small range, that will bind them together so tightly that, well, matter can exist.
It's kind of like that. Individual wolves and people want to bond. But there's a basic sense of suspicion, a repulsive force that makes them wary of getting too close, especially with each other - members of different species. But if something were to force them into that close proximity, an even greater force, the need to bond, can take over.

Completed 2006.
Okay. Maybe The Elk Hunters was a little too much to swallow. That story was about two anomalous individuals, whose peculiar circumstances contributed to their readiness to accept something new. I don't know how it really happened; only that it really did happen. Some time, between about twenty and fifteen thousand years ago the world went from one in which there were wolves, living just fine thank you very much, and people, likewise, to one in which there were people and wolves working (hunting) together.
So maybe that story, two freaks who find each other in the vastness of the Pleistocene wilderness, doesn't do it for you. In The Mammoth Hunters, I want to tell a different story about how it may have happened. Here, there are two normal groups. Ostensibly they don't need each other. They and their ancestors have been living the way they lived for many thousands of years. But one remarkable wolf, and a normal boy, who didn't like eating kidneys, changed that.
There's a story here, for sure. Somehow people and wolves got together and their association, lasting until today, changed the world. It certainly changed the history of human development. It's hard to imagine agriculture ever working without dogs. Imagine you're a Stone Age hunter. The climate is changing. You realize that hunting for animals is getting too hard and that maybe you could capture some alive. Okay, now what? Anyone who's dealt with even domestic livestock will realize that that's just not going to happen. You've got a stick, a spear, a few brothers. You can kill some goats, no problem. But capture them? Now imagine you've got a couple of dogs.

Completed 2007.
OK, fine. However it happened, it did happen. One hundred thousand years ago, people and wolves did not hunt together. Fifteen thousand years ago, three wolves in Asia gave birth to the lines of animals that include all dogs today. Somewhere in between, there must have been a first time that people and wolves began to cooperate. That's a mathematical certainty. It's also likely that it happened closer to fifteen thousand years ago than to one hundred thousand years ago, just given the way people operate. It wouldn't take very long before the events I describe in this story would have taken place (well, actually, I just made up these events but something fundamentally similar). So, probably after fewer than a couple dozen generations of wolf-human association, something happened to make dogs.
What is a dog? Well, it's basically a wolf. Dogs and wolves can and do interbreed. Their offspring express genetic characteristics of both parents and, more importantly, pass along those characteristics to their own offspring. There are differences in appearance, for sure. But, the differences between a wolf and, say, a husky are no greater than those between, say, a mastiff and a cocker spaniel, right?
What do we like about dogs? What has made them so important to our history and to our lives? Well, they're smart. They have keen senses. They're loyal. They're protective. All those are wolf characteristics, too. There is one wolf characteristic, however, that is suppressed in dogs. It defines the wolf, in many ways, and, when it's present in dogs, it can be irritating. So, over the millennia we've tried to tone it down. We haven't been able to get rid of it completely, as anyone who's had a bunch of dogs knows. But it's certainly not as pronounced in dogs as it is in wolves. Dominance.