Read TEXT below and answer question.
TEXT 1: Dogs have been man’s best friend for 40,000 years: Humans tamed canine ancestors centuries earlier than first thought
(Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline and Ben Spenser for the Daily Mail)
It was thought humans first tamed the ancestors of domestic dogs in the Ice Age, between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. But a new study has found our canine sidekicks have been our best friend for much longer.
A team of Swedish scientists discovered a divergence in the species may have occurred up to 40,000 years ago based on the genetic analysis of an ancient wolf bone. To early humans, the first domesticated wolves were hunting companions, fighting animals and beasts of burden. As they bred the animals, selecting those that best met their needs, the domestic and wild breeds diverged, and the animals’ genetic code became less and less similar.
Experts previously believed this divergence happened in the Mesolithic era – at a time when humans were transforming from hunters into farmers. But the new of research suggests the first domestic dogs may have dated back more than 20,000 years earlier, during the Late Stone Age.
Scientists from Swedish Museum of Natural History analyzed the DNA of a canine bone discovered in the Taimyr Peninsula, Siberia. They believe the bone, which has been radiocarbon dated to 35,000 years ago, belonged to a domesticated wolf – in effect one of the early dogs. Given the divergence between its DNA and wild wolves, they estimate its earliest domesticated ancestors could have lived 5,000 years before. And they say the animal represents the most recent common ancestor of modern wolves and dogs and could have been man’s best friend between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Study author Love Dalén, whose research is published in the journal Current Biology, said: ‘Dogs may have been domesticated much earlier than is generally believed. The only other explanation is that there was a major divergence between two wolf populations at that time, and one of these populations subsequently gave rise to all modern wolves.’ But he said this second explanation less likely, since it would require that the second wolf population subsequently became extinct in the wild.
Co-author Pontus Skoglund, of Harvard Medical School in the US, added: ‘It is still possible that a population of wolves remained relatively untamed but tracked human groups to a large degree, for a long time.’
The researchers made these discoveries based on a small piece of bone picked up during an expedition to the Taimyr Peninsula. When they radiocarbon dated the bone, they realized it was a 35,000 years old. The DNA evidence showed that modern-day Siberian Huskies and Greenland sled dogs share an unusually large number of genes with the ancient Taimyr wolf.
Dr. Skoglund said: ‘The power of DNA can provide direct evidence that a Siberian Husky you see walking down the street shares ancestry with a wolf that roamed Northern Siberia 35,000 years ago. ‘To put that in perspective, this wolf lived just a few thousand years after Neanderthals disappeared from Europe and modern humans started populating Europe and Asia.’
(Disponível em: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article3091307/Dogs-man-s-best-friends-40-000-yearsHumans-tamed-canine-ancestors-centuries-earlierthought.html).
The Odyssey, one of the most important epic poems in Western literature, was supposedly written by Homer almost 3,000 years ago, and it tells the wanderings of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, after the ten years of the Trojan War. Just after the battles, Odysseus attempts to come back home, but Neptune, god of the sea, prevents his coming. Odysseus reaches his kingdom after ten years of peregrination through the Mediterranean Islands. A very moving and famous scene is when the hero, disguised as a mendicant, is recognized by his dog Argos, a strong and clever hound. Read the excerpt below (TEXT) to answer question.
TEXT 2: Odyssey, Book XVII 290-320
As they were thus talking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Ulysses had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any work out of him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Ulysses standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Ulysses saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said:
"Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?"
"This hound," answered Eumaeus, "belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Ulysses left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Jove takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him."
(Homer. The Odyssey, Book XVII 290-320. Translated by Samuel Butler. Orange Street Press Classics, 1998. Disponível em: http://sparks.eserver.org/books/odyssey.pdf).
The excerpt above taken from the Odyssey suggests a great deal of friendship and fidelity between dogs and their masters. According to the details of this literary narrative, we may conclude that the story:
