Brumm Adam, Koungoulos Loukas
Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia.
School of Humanities, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Sep 3;12(17):2285. doi: 10.3390/ani12172285.
Historical sources and Indigenous oral traditions indicate that Australian Aboriginal people commonly reared and kept the wild-caught pups of dingoes () as tamed companion animals. A review of the available evidence suggests Indigenous communities employed an intense socialisation process that forged close personal bonds between humans and their tame dingoes from an early age. This was complemented by oral traditions which passed down awareness of the dangers to children posed by wild or unfamiliar dingoes, and which communicated the importance of treating dingoes with respect. Together, these practices resulted in what can be interpreted as substantially altered behaviours in tamed dingoes, which, despite their naturally high prey drive, were not considered a serious threat to children and were thus able to be maintained as companion animals in the long term. This relationship is of importance for understanding the original domestication of the dog, as it demonstrates a means by which careful and deliberate socialisation by foragers could both manage risks to children's safety posed by keeping wild canids in the domestic realm and retain them well into reproductive maturity-both issues which have been highlighted as obstacles to the domestication of dogs from wolves.
历史资料和原住民口述传统表明，澳大利亚原住民通常会饲养和收留野生捕获的澳洲野狗幼崽作为驯化的伴侣动物。对现有证据的回顾表明，原住民社区采用了一种强化的社会化过程，从早期就建立起人类与其驯化澳洲野狗之间紧密的个人联系。这得到了口述传统的补充，这些传统传承了关于野生或不熟悉的澳洲野狗对儿童构成危险的认知，并传达了尊重澳洲野狗的重要性。这些做法共同导致了驯化澳洲野狗的行为发生了实质性改变，尽管它们天生具有很高的捕食驱动力，但并不被视为对儿童的严重威胁，因此能够长期作为伴侣动物饲养。这种关系对于理解狗的最初驯化很重要，因为它展示了一种方式，即觅食者通过谨慎而刻意的社会化，既可以管理在家庭环境中饲养野生犬科动物对儿童安全造成的风险，又可以使它们保留到生殖成熟——这两个问题都被强调为狼驯化狗的障碍。
