Scientists have determined the exact period when dogs became man's best friend

According to new discovery, humans domesticated dogs earlier than previously thought - about 10,000 years BC. Scientists have established this by analyzing dog bones found in Alaska.

The bones contained traces of salmon proteins, indicating that dogs regularly ate fish that were probably caught by humans. This is a sign of domestication, writes DailyMail.

Researchers from the University of Arizona found a 12,000-year-old lower leg bone that belonged to an adult dog the size of a wolf at an archaeological site called Swan Point (Alaska).

According to experts, this ancient dog lived towards the end of the Ice Age. This suggests that Alaska's indigenous people developed a relationship with dogs about 2,000 years earlier than previous studies have shown.

The team of scientists also found an 8100-year-old dog jaw at a nearby excavation site, which is proof that domesticated dogs lived in human settlements.

"We now have evidence that canids and people had close relationships earlier than we knew they did in the Americas," François Lanoë, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona.

According to experts, these dogs, which fed on salmon thanks to humans, may have been closer to tame wolves than a true early example of a unique species of dog, bred and domesticated, that modern humans would recognize.

"Behaviorally, they seem to be like dogs, but genetically, they're not related to anything we know," said Lanoë.

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