Britain's First Dog
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fifteen thousand years ago, as the Ice Age loosened its grip on Northern Europe, humans returned to the previously inhospitable British Isles. But they did not come alone. Among their number was a companion once thought to be an impossibility: Britain's earliest known dog.
In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes Dr. Selina Brace and Dr. William Marsh from the Natural History Museum to explore groundbreaking new research from Gough’s Cave that is reshaping our understanding of humans and dogs in Ice Age Britain. Together they uncover the story of a remarkable discovery: ancient remains once believed to belong to a wolf, now identified as Britain’s oldest known domesticated dog. How did this dog live alongside prehistoric hunter-gatherers? And how is this discovery changing what we thought we knew about the arrival of dogs in Britain?
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The First Dogs:
End of the Ice Age Britain:
Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tudorburg forest? |
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| 0:30.5 | Hello and welcome to a very special episode of The Ancients where we're doing some breaking news. |
| 0:37.4 | You might have seen very recently. It's been |
| 0:40.1 | announced that Britain's earliest known dog has been discovered some 15,000 years ago. It was living |
| 0:48.3 | in Goff's Cave in Cheddar Gorge. Now, I've got my own dog right next to me at the moment. |
| 0:53.3 | We've got Gummer. He's being a |
| 0:54.3 | menace, as always, this lovely spaniel. And yes, Gummer, today we're talking about your 15,000-year-old |
| 1:00.8 | Ice Age ancestor, Britain's first dog. Today we've got on the show two of the authors of that |
| 1:08.3 | brand new paper. We've got Dr. William Marsh and Dr. Salina Brace. |
| 1:13.3 | And thereon to tell you all about this brand new discovery |
| 1:15.9 | and the amazing world it's opening up |
| 1:18.6 | and a world of Ice Age dogs in Britain, in Western Europe. |
| 1:23.8 | Let's go. |
| 1:25.0 | Good boy. |
| 1:45.8 | Music Let's go. Good boy. The Ice Age, an age of megafauna, glacial landscapes, and our prehistoric hunter-gatherer ancestors. In Britain, 15,000 years ago, much of the landmass had been uninhabitable, covered in either |
| 1:52.6 | ice or tundra wasteland. |
... |
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