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Angelos I can respond to two of your questions... We have many, many dog bones from 3rd and 2nd millennium Umm el-Marra in northern Syria. These come from trash, isolated deposits and human burials. The majority show healed breaks and/or deformities in the long bones, and many have pathological tooth configurations. Additionally, the majority of the 3rd millennium bones have cut marks. These seem to be from disarticulation, though some may also be for de-fleshing. I would be quite interested in your ideas for rickets. That is not something i have explored for these bones. Jill Weber On Monday, April 11, 2011, Angelos Hadjikoumis <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Dear colleagues, > > I am working on an Early Bronze Age assemblage from Greece with a high number of well-preserved dog remains. Having limited experience on dog bones I have a series of questions on how to record more information from dog remains. > 1) Is there any formalised scheme of recording tooth wear on dog mandibles? I was thinking of recording few crude stages of wear on some of the mandibular teeth but if there is something used more widely by colleagues it might be worth adopting for comparability reasons. Also, I understand that tooth wear on dog teeth might not indicate age as reliably as in ruminants but still it might be a crude indication of age clusters beyond epiphyseal fusion and eruption. > > 2) Has anyone noticed dog long bones that exhibit deformations that are reminiscent of rickets? I will post fotos in the near future but I am referring e.g. to the posterior face of tibia bulging out instead of being flatish (i.e. a section would be strongly elliptical in shape) or a particularly curved femur. > > 3) How common is the absence of the second and/or third molars? Does it indicate different breed or is it just occuring randomly in all dog populations? > > 4) Any references for dog consumption in prehistoric Europe (preferably Greece and/or eastern mediterranean)? I am finding extensive cutmarks. I have come accross that before in a Neolithic assemblage but not to this extent. > > Thank you in advance for your help and apologies for the extent of my questions. > > All the best to all, > Angelos Hadjikoumis >