The list of sporting achievements by the Maltese continues to grow as Neville ‘Nusu’ Ciantar, off-road racing driver and member of All-Wheel Drive Club, placed 2nd in 2021’s King of Portugal. Known to be the toughest race in Europe, Ciantar managed to excel and dominate in the event, coming just short of one place to winning.
The King of Portugal was started in 2013, with participants challenged to go through different circuits in the shortest time possible. It is a test of everything from vehicles, tires, transmissions but also of the driver’s adaptability, calculation and dexterity. This isn’t the first Ciantar competed, having finished 5th in 2017 and 6th in 2018.
Ciantar’s achievement is simply more proof of Maltese capability in keeping their own on an international level. Well done!
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Photo Source: Neville Ciantar FB
Dogs most probably evolved from wolves at a single location about 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. It was previously thought that dogs are tamed from two different populations of wolves living thousands of miles apart. One study reports that DNA from three dogs found at archaeological sites in Germany and Ireland were between 4,700 and 7,000 years old. The ancient canines share ancestry with modern European dogs.
According to Krishna Veeramah of Stony Brook University, wolf populations would move to the outskirts of hunter-gatherer camps to scavenge for leftovers. The wolves which proved to be tamer and less aggressive towards humans would be more successful at getting unwanted food scraps. Despite the humans not getting any benefit from this initial behaviour, this quickly started to develop…
A symbiotic relationship wherein dogs would linger around humans to help them hunt to get food could have contributed to the domestication process. Some hypotheses state that the process should be looked the other way around – that it was dogs that domesticated humans. Many scientists say that dogs started to travel with human companions round 20,000 years ago.
They would have not been dogs many consider pets today, but they would have resembled village dogs which do not live in specific houses but simply roam around villages. These dogs would later be taken on for breeding into herders, hunters or gun dogs. Researchers however still consider themselves only scratching the surface of how this happened.
The issue is that it is super difficult to go back in time – literally or metaphorically. We have fossil records and possibly some manuscripts which could hint at dogs being domesticated. But for the most part, these bonds were being created during a time where no written documents were being produced.
Whatever the case may be, investigating how dogs became such a human favourite companion testifies to the close bond we as a species have developed. Many won’t even dream of spending their life without their canine best friend. The origin of how and why this occurred is still a massive mystery, but the bond we’ve created is undeniable.
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