Fierce dogs may have helped humans track and kill mammoths during Ice Age

A new study suggests that early dogs may have helped human hunters track and kill mammoths in Ice Age Europe and Asia.

The fierce dogs may have then guarded the meat from their wolf relatives, the study found.

Penn State archeologist Pat Shipman recently calculated that the age ranges of mammoths found in these ancient boneyards suggest that the animals were hunted, not just scavenged after a catastrophe killed an entire herd, Discovery News reported.

Shipman suggested that the domestication of wolves, along with improvements in projectile weapons, may have allowed people to successfully hunt large numbers of mammoths.

From approximately 40,000 to 15,000 years ago, human campsites from Siberia to central Europe contained tremendous numbers of mammoth bones, sometimes from more than 100 individual pachyderms. In many cases, humans constructed buildings using the mammoth bones, tusks and hides.

Shipman noted that high numbers of wild wolf and Arctic fox bones appear along with the mammoth bones.

Dogs may have helped guard the mammoth meat by alerting people when other carnivores came sniffing around. The wolves and foxes were then killed and skinned for their pelts and meat.

The study has been published in the journal Quaternary International.