NFU•SIBERIANTIMES The dog's teeth just as they were 12,000 years ago

Russian archaeologists also found signs of human activity where the mummified dog was discovered in Siberia, suggesting it had been tamed by early man. Scientists believe it is the sibling of a similar dog carcass - a three-month-old female - found in 2011 in the area, the Ust-Yansky district of the Sakha Republic on a steep bank of River Syalakh. Sergei Fedorov, head of exhibitions at the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, who led the field trip, said: "The condition of our new find is perfect. "It is preserved from nose to tail, including the hair. You can see the hair on the paw on the picture." It is a dog not a wolf, and although it is not yet concluded it did live with humans, if it did, they were likely to have been mammoth hunters.

NFU•SIBERIANTIMES The animal corpse still caked in mud

Both dogs are suspected of being killed by a landslide. The latest trip was made to search for the traces of human activity, after the first puppy was found, to see if it did live with people. Some tools made of bone, and the bones of animal with traces of butchering and of being burnt by fire were found. Mr Fedorov said of the new puppy: "We decided to take the carcass (back to Yakutsk) encased in soil, not cleaning it, in one piece. "It will help to save the environment of the remains for further research. We plan to study microorganisms in the soil that covers the carcass. Some parasites might be preserved, which will also give us useful information." Post mortems and further research will be carried out on both animals. DNA tests on the first puppy showed it to be a dog, rather than a wolf.

The condition of our new find is perfect. It is preserved from nose to tail, including the hair. You can see the hair on the paw on the picture. Sergei Fedorov, head of exhibitions at the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk

Dr Mietje Germonpre, from the palaeontology department of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, said of the original creature: "After studying the mummy and looking at the measurements of the skulls belonging to ancient dogs and wolves, I can say this find is unique. It's amazing. In other museums around the world you will only find the remains of adult dogs, but this is a puppy. "Also all external signs and scan results indicate that it is a primitive dog, and at the moment it is the most ancient one found in northern Siberia. The oldest dog remains were found in the Goya cave in Belgium, and were 36,500 years old, and there are many finds dating to about 26,000 years ago - but they are not so well preserved. Here we see the skin and hair and even the internal organs survived."

NFU•SIBERIANTIMES The team who found the animal

She said the latest animal is the "oldest mummified dog in the world" and scientists hope it will help chart the ancestry to today's domesticated canines. It could be that it belonged to an early domestic breed that lived with the people of Central Asia and went on to settle in the American continent. She suggested two theories. "The first is that dogs arrived near sites where humans lived and picked up the scraps and gradually they co-existed. The second version talks about the active involvement of man, where the people themselves were the initiator of the relationship, and brought the puppies to their home and trained them."