The Wolf Within. Professor Bryan Sykes

At its narrowest point, the mighty Danube thunders through a narrow gorge, the Gate of Trajan,* cut by the river into the limestone bastions of the Carpathian Alps. Lupa, the she-wolf, stood at the edge of the gorge gazing down at the small figures making their way up the banks of the river a hundred metres below. They did not provoke in her any particular reaction. Humans had been using the river in this way for as long as she could remember. She and her pack did not have anything to do with the humans, but all the same she liked to keep an eye on them when they were in her territory. She knew the humans as brave hunters but they moved far too slowly to be very effective. They would eat anything that moved, including her fellow wolves if they could catch one. But that very rarely happened, and only if a wolf was sick or injured in some way. Earlier in the year, Lupa had watched the humans ambush and kill a young mammoth by driving it over the edge of the cliff, though this was unusual and most of the time they seemed barely able to scrape a living. For Lupa the main thing was to leave them alone and avoid unnecessary confrontations.

      As the river mist lifted with the first rays of morning sun, Lupa could see the humans more clearly and, with her acute awareness of every detail of her surroundings, she sensed that they were a bit different from usual. They were a little taller, a little slimmer perhaps and moved a little more, how would she put it, a little more gracefully. Probably nothing in it, she thought to herself. Even so, I’ll keep a close eye on them. She turned away and trotted effortlessly back across the undulating grassland, dusted by an early frost, to join the rest of the pack. It was October and winter was well on the way. The river had begun to freeze over and the last of the reindeer had already moved down from the high plateau to their wintering grounds on the river estuary. It was time for Lupa and her pack to follow them, and next day she led them on the long trek downstream towards the Great Black Sea.

      Along with Lupa and her mate of two seasons there were four young wolves in Lupa’s pack, two from this year’s litter and two from the year before. The pups, born in June, were just old enough to learn to hunt. Before that the pack was too small to be viable for long and it had been hard work getting enough food over the summer. As always, it was Lupa who organised the hunting. She decided what prey to target, even which animal to go for. She planned the chase to take advantage of any variation in the contours of the landscape and decided where to set any ambushes. The pack was completely dependent on her skill and leadership.

      Meanwhile, the humans at the bottom of the gorge were not aware that they were being watched. They knew about wolves, of course. They occasionally came across one in the forests and were familiar with the eerie howling that kept pack members in touch with one another. But in general humans and wolves kept themselves to themselves. The new type of human, Homo sapiens, that Lupa had seen from her vantage point at the lip of the gorge had other things on their mind. The first of these was that the gorge was also home to Neanderthals. They were noticeably different in appearance, being much heavier set and therefore stronger, but at the same time were less agile. Neanderthals and moderns tolerated each other and, in fact, occasionally interbred. The biggest difference between the two human species was invisible. The Neanderthals were not as smart or inventive. They hadn’t changed their hunting methods or equipment for at least 200,000 years and showed little sign of ever doing so. The moderns on the other hand were always thinking of new ways of doing things. New designs of stone tools, of bows and arrows, the invention of the atlatl, or spear-thrower, and of all sorts of personal adornments. In time, these improvements would spell the end of the Neanderthals, and now there was one other innovation that was about to make an impact, a coalition between wolf and human, something the Neanderthals had never even contemplated.

      The caves lining the Gate of Trajan were a favourite hibernation site for one of the most feared animals of the Upper Palaeolithic, the cave bear Ursus spelaeus, half as big again as the brown bear and with a voracious, omnivorous appetite for food which, from time to time, included humans, both Neanderthal and modern. Whereas Neanderthals abandoned the shelter of the caves as soon as they heard or smelled a bear nosing around, moderns had learned to leave the caves in the autumn and return a few weeks later when the bears were hibernating and kill them where they slept. This gave them vacant possession and enough meat to help them through the winter, should they wish to stay.

      By early March the days were getting longer, although not appreciably warmer, and Lupa knew it was time to make a start for the high ground. The wolf pack had survived the winter by feeding off the herds of reindeer and wild horse which overwintered on the delta. But first there was the business of mating. Lupa was only receptive to the alpha male for five days every year. That was enough for her to get pregnant once again. She wanted to be sure to reach her traditional denning site in the hills in good time for the birth of her cubs. Very early one morning, with the frost decorating the dried stems of last year’s reeds, she led her pack away from the delta and headed west for the mountains.

      In past seasons Lupa had arrived in the gorge ahead of the Neanderthals, who had also spent the winter on lower ground. This year she was surprised to see humans were already living around the gorge when she arrived with the other wolves. She made her way to her usual birthing den in a small cave hidden behind a patch of eroded scree high up on the side of the gorge. Ten days before the cubs were due, she settled down and waited for the births. For the period of her confinement the alpha male ran the pack. All the wolves brought food to Lupa which they left outside her den.

      In due course Lupa gave birth to four blind cubs. One, the weakest, died almost immediately, but the other three developed quickly. Their eyes opened at two weeks and a week later they were beginning to feed on regurgitated meat. The following week, Lupa led her pups outside the den for the first time where they played under her supervision. The other wolves who had kept Lupa supplied with meat during her confinement now began to do their share of babysitting, giving Lupa a well-deserved break.

      The first thing she did was to walk to her favourite lookout at the edge of the gorge to see what the humans were up to. She could see a small group paddling in the river, overturning stones and occasionally plunging their hands into the icy water to pull out a crayfish. This is something the Neanderthals never did. But the biggest surprise was still to come. On her way back to the den she saw not far away on the plateau a group of humans who appeared to be hunting. The Neanderthals never came up to the top of the gorge. These strange new humans were the same slimmer version she had seen the year before. Unsure what to make of them, she kept low to the ground out of sight behind a clump of dwarf willow.

      Over the rest of the summer Lupa and her pack saw more and more of the humans up on the plateau.

      She saw them ambush a wild horse they had deliberately separated from the herd. They had it cornered in a patch of marshy ground below a low bluff where it became trapped in the mud. Two of the humans – there were six in all – climbed the bluff with spears in hand. While the others spread their arms and shouted to confine the horse and prevent it from escaping, the two on the bluff raised their spears and hurled them into the struggling animal. It shuddered and dropped to the ground. All six humans crowded round the stricken beast and drove their spears deep into its chest. Once it was dead they took out stone knives, opened the abdomen and shared the liver between them. They then butchered the rest of the carcass and made their way back down the gorge. Not all their hunts were as successful as this, and more than once over the summer Lupa watched as the exhausted humans made their way home empty-handed.

      The first flurries of winter snow fell on the high plateau in August and the reindeer were once again on the move to lower ground. The first snows heralded the best month’s hunting of the year for the wolves. Calves born in May were now almost fully grown but were inexperienced. The wolves knew which routes the animals would take across the undulating plateau and planned to intercept them in the pockets of soggy ground that lay in their path. Lupa led her pack, now nine strong, towards the ambush zone, many kilometres from their home near the top of the gorge. But something was troubling her. She stopped and sniffed the air. There it was again, the same scent she had first encountered at the site where the humans had killed and butchered the wild horse a few weeks earlier. Not only was Lupa’s olfactory sense very acute, she was also able to remember smells for