Remains
of the first visibly identifiable dingo-like dogs are found extensively
throughout Eurasia and North America.
Bones of ‘wolves’ such as Canis lupus variabilis – I’ve put
‘wolves’ in parenthesis because as I’ve mentioned, some biologists say these
were not wolves but rather a closely related but different canine species that
was our dogs’ direct ancestor – have been found in association with humans and
our hominid ancestors as far back as 400,000 years ago but the oldest
archaeological evidence of the ‘dog’ comes from two skeletons probably 14,800
years old (but up to 17,000 years old) found at a very late paleolithic
settlement called Eliseyevichi in the Bryansk region of Russia. (The
paleolithic is the longest part of the Stone Age, from the beginning of the use
of stone tools until 15,000 years ago.) These skeletons belonged to large Ice
Age dogs, 70 centimetres (27.5 inches) high at the withers, the size of Tibetan
mastiffs (or as the Russian researchers preferred to compare them, the size of
Caucasian owtcharkas). These two dogs had shorter and wider muzzles than local
wolves. Their bones were found next to reindeer, polar fox and mammoth bones.
One of the skulls had a hole bored into it, doubtlessly to extract the brain to
eat. That’s not an uncommon find in dog skulls found in late Stone Age and
early Bronze Age settlements. I’ve got a small reservation about the accuracy
of the interpretation of these bones. Their size surprises me. Everywhere else,
the oldest dog bones come from dingo-sized animals. These are wolf-sized
skeletons. I’d like to see the Russian researchers confirm these are dog bones
which can be done simply by analysing their mtDNA.
The oldest archaeological evidence of a companionable rather
than a nutritional relationship with the dog comes from a dog jaw bone, 14,000
years old, found interred with a human at Bonn-Oberkassel, an archaeological
site in Germany. Two more adult dog skulls, almost as old, have been found in
internment sites near Kiev, Ukraine.?The oldest of all these dog remains are
from sites of very late Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies but by the time
of the Neolithic Period, beginning around 12,000 years ago in the Middle East
and slightly later in Europe, dogs had become an integral part of human culture
and filled specific roles. A Neolithic rock painting from what is present day
Iraq shows people hunting deer accompanied by dogs with curled tails. Another
painting found in what is present day Algeria shows an ox-like animal
surrounded by dogs with curled tails and a man holding a spear. In what is now
Israel, at a burial site at Ein Mallaha dating back 12,000 years, is the oldest
and most touching evidence that our ancestors could form emotional bonds with
dogs. There, a woman is buried with her arm around a young dog around the same
age as my pup Bean. In another site at Hayonim, 500 years older than the Ein
Mallaha site, there are two full dog skeletons that have been intentionally
interred. To me, this also suggests that dogs already had, let’s call it
‘spiritual value’.
Dog graveyards are ancient?In Ashkelon, Israel a more recent
dog burial site tells of the value of dogs or the respect they were accorded. A
Phoenician graveyard 2500 years old has been discovered in which there are 700
dogs, all carefully buried in the same position, on their sides with their legs
flexed and their tails tucked neatly around their hind legs. According to the
archaeologists, these dogs, all similar in type, are not unlike the modern
Israeli Canaan dog, itself a descendant of Bedouin pariah dogs.)
In continental Europe, as well as the mandible in
Oberkassel, a dog skull carbon dated to be over 13,000 years old has been found
in a cave at Kniegrotte and a 10,000 year old dog skull at
Bedburg-Koningshoven, both in Germany. The oldest dog remains in France, over
10,000 years old, were found near St Thibaud in the Alps while the oldest dog
remains in Britain are 9,500 years old.
In east Asia, on the Russian Kamchatka peninsula a 10,500
year old intentionally interred dog skeleton has been discovered in an
archaeological dig while in northern China, eleven buried dogs have been
uncovered in a burial site at Jiahu (Henan) that is 9,500 years old. Equally
old dog bones have been found in a shell mound, an ancient waste dump, at
Natsushima (Kanagawa) in Japan while a full dog skeleton has been discovered
intentionally buried near Kamikuroiwa (Ehima).