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Image above: Two social species at Dmanisi. (a) altruistic behavior of a group of Homo erectus sharing food with an individual who lived several years without teeth (as evidenced by edentulous skull D3444 and associated mandible D3900). This severe masticatory impairment would limit the diet of the individual to foodstuffs that did not require heavy chewing (e.g., soft plants, animal brain and marrow) or that were orally processed before by others. (b) a pack of hunting dogs chasing a prey (goat Hemitragus albus) by at Venta Micena, a site where a pathological skull (cranium and associated mandible VM-7000) of Canis (Xenocyon) lycaonoides showing marked bilateral asymmetry and agenesia of several teeth was unearthed. The disabled dog, whose absence of an upper canine probably made it useless for hunting, is drawn running far behind the pack. Given that the individual managed to survive until a relatively advanced age, as indicated by tooth wearing, this suggests that the other members of its family group would have allowed it to feed on the prey captured by the hunting pack. Remains of this hypercarnivorous canid species are also preserved in the assemblage of large mammals from Dmanisi, as shown in this paper.A team of researchers from Italy, Spain and Georgia has found the remains of ancient hunting dogs at a dig site in what is now modern Georgia. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group describes the fossils they found, their attempts to classify them and the possibility of the dogs interacting with early human ancestors.
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