Man's best friend has been in Britain for 14,300 YEARS: Scientists discover an ancient dog bone in Somerset - suggesting pups were 'loyal companions to Ice Age hunters'

Man's best friend has been in Britain for more than 14,300 years, according to a new study – and was a loyal companion to Ice Age hunters.

Experts have uncovered the remnants of a jaw bone in a cave in Somerset and used DNA analysis to determine its origin.

They discovered the fossil belonged to a dog, not a wolf, and dated it to 14,300 years ago during the Late Upper Palaeolithic.

This makes it the earliest evidence of dog domestication in the UK, they said, pushing previous estimates back by thousands of years.

And it provides unprecedented insight into the origins of the human–dog bond, showing just how long they have been man's best friend.

These dogs would have closely resembled wolves, the authors said, but there is evidence they were treated 'like people'.

'These dogs were nothing like our modern day Chihuahua, but the close relationship we have with our dogs today almost certainly extended back 15,000 years ago,' Dr William Marsh, co–lead author from the Natural History Museum, told the Daily Mail.

'The cost of feeding these dogs would have been high, so the fact they persisted alongside humans means they were likely of great importance – whether that be as guards, hunting animals, or like today, as companions.'

For the study, published in the journal Nature, researchers from 17 institutions analysed archaeological specimens older than 10,000 years that had been excavated from sites including Gough's Cave in Somerset and Pınarbaşı in Turkey.

They then compared the DNA with more than 1,000 modern and ancient dogs and wolves from across the world.

Results of the analysis confirmed that these bones belonged to dogs, pushing back the earliest direct evidence for dogs by more than 5,000 years.

'The first clue that the Gough's Cave bones belonged to dogs came from their unusually small size – particularly striking compared with the exceptionally large wolves of the time,' author Simon Parfitt, from the UCL Institute of Archaeology, said.

'DNA now confirms they were ancient domestic dogs, loyal companions to Ice Age hunters at the northern edge of the inhabited world.

'Notably, some bones show deliberate human modification, suggesting these dogs held symbolic significance after death as well as companionship during life.'

The team explained that the dog would have looked much more like a wolf than the dogs we know and love today.

'It certainly wouldn't have had any of the features we often associate with modern breeds, such as curly fur or floppy ears,' co–first author Dr Lachie Scarsbrook, from LMU Munich, said.

While researchers can only speculate about the role these dogs played in hunter–gatherer communities, it's possible they may have helped during hunts or acted as an early warning system.

'They may have alerted people to nearby predators or other human groups,' Dr Scarsbrook explained.

'The fact that dogs spread quickly among different hunter–gatherer groups suggests they must have been extremely valuable.'

This period of history was thousands of years before the widespread use of agriculture.

At this time, humans were hunter–gatherers who roamed the landscape to find food and shelter.

'At Gough's Cave, we find dogs alongside humans from the Magdalenian culture, who hunted large terrestrial prey and were well suited to cold environments in Northern Europe,' Dr Marsh said.

'At Pınarbaşı in Turkey, the humans are Anatolian Hunter–Gatherers, who utilised a far broader range of prey – fish, small mammals, birds.

'What is fascinating is that these dogs seem to have a similarly close relationship with humans, regardless of how these humans behaved and interacted with the landscape.'

The researchers also discovered that these dogs and humans were eating the same thing and appeared to have been treated in the same way after death.

'This suggests that by 15,000 years ago, hunter–gatherers were already treating their dogs like people, which really highlights just how long they've held their place as 'man's best friend',' Dr Scarsbrook added.

The new DNA data also revealed that the dogs were more closely related to the ancestors of present–day European and Middle Eastern breeds, such as boxers and salukis, than to Arctic breeds like Siberian huskies.

This indicates that today's major dog genetic lineages must have been established by the Upper Palaeolithic, the researchers said.

'By comparing the DNA from these ancient dogs with other ancient and modern populations, we were surprised to see just how closely related the earliest dogs were despite living more than 4,000km apart,' Professor Greger Larson, from the University of Oxford, said.

'This suggests that the first dogs were a game changer and spread rapidly across Europe.'