Re: Kitty Kats
John Atkinson (johna@tiny.me.su.oz.au)
Wed, 11 Dec 1996 17:50:38 +1000
chessonp@aol.com wrote:
> I have a problem with the idea that the domestication of the dog dates
> only back to 12 to 14 thousands years ago. That problem concerns dogs in
> Australia. If the people in Australia got there 30 to 40 thousand years
> ago, but have been isolated from the rest of humanity since some early
> settling time, and people only domensticated wolves about 14 thousand
> years ago, how can it all work?
Dogs have been in Australia much less than 30 or 40 thousand years --
I believe the accepted figure is something like 5 or 6 thousand years.
For example, they never got to Tasmania before it was cut off by rising
sea level -- with the result that the thylocine survived there till
this century.
People in Australia have not been completely isolated since the first
settlement. They had a robust and well-adapted culture which absorbed
subsequent settlers with comparatively little change -- until a couple
of hundred years ago, when they were demographically overwhelmed by
the whites.
John
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