Dr. William Marsh

Gough's Cave has essentially unlocked loads of other insights which we can have about the dog-human relationship.

This is very tricky.

As I said earlier, there's been loads of claims.

The earliest genetic evidence we have for dogs anywhere before this study was 11,000 years ago.

This was in Northern Europe, Sweden, Russia, actually more Western Russia.

This

dog at Bonnaber Castle, although we have very, very poor DNA preservation in it, because of its association with this human burial, because of these pathologies, it was widely seen as the earliest dog, although genetically, we had no understanding of it.

We didn't know whether it was a dog or a wolf.

This analysis has allowed us to confirm, yes, it is indeed a dog.

And we found other ones.

And it also makes you think, why did they do it?

Why did they make this hole in the mandible?

Could a thread have been strung through it?

And was it being used as something?

I don't know.

My brain doesn't allow me to think that way.

There's some anthropologists and archaeologists out there who will almost certainly have better insights than I have.

But there's no reason to really have done it.

It must have been symbolic.

It is remarkable that these two sites, 3,500 kilometres apart, 2,500 miles, have humans.