Dear Annette,

I was interested in your first mail that did actually get through but I 
didn't answer because I work on much more recent periods. Still, I don't 
believe that resolving your problem should be limited to a single period. 
It is a matter of human behaviour that went through times until our 
periods. What if I told you that in France today some families keeping dogs 
give names to part of the newborns puppies of a given lot, those pets would 
be kept as company animals, for hunting or other purposes. The other part 
of the same lot don't receive a name and are meant to be consumed (Vallet, 
pers. com.). I work on the gallo-roman period in France. The problem here 
is the same as yours : some animals are consumed all the way from the first 
to the fourth century AD but a great deal of these animals are burried 
whole with no human intervention on the animal (except disposal or burrial 
of course). Romans introduced tiny dogs as pet animals. I tried to find out 
wether there was a link between the size of the dog and its consumption. 
The result is that even the smallest dogs were consumed. Therefore I try to 
regard human behaviour towards dogs independently of our modern concepts. 
Dogs are consumed when necessary or in special ceremonies and there are no 
reasons for considering that pet keeping should be in contradiction with 
the consumption. It is important though to measure on the same site the 
proportion of cut baring dog bones to those free of any clear cut marks. 
This helps to trace marginal consumptions wich seems to be often the case.


At 14:50 29/05/01 +0200, vous avez écrit:
Hello -I do not know if my 1 email got through so I'll try one more time
and

I would like to ask the board a Q. Regarding dog burials (from 12.000
-3.900 B.C).

The Q is this.  What is your opinion about the differentiation in the way
that dogs was handled in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period. I mean,
some of the dog bones was found in kitchenmiddens, - and often was the
bonemarrow removed -eaten. Other dogs were found, in burials with humans.
And some dogs were given a fine solo burial with rich offering goods -very
like the rich human graves from the same period.  (Scandinavian finds). My
own guess is that there was a kind of selection - but was it a selection
done by humans -the dogs that was the best hunters -best guards ore? That
where given the finest burials?
- Ore was it like "today" = some dogs was "street dogs almost on there own"
and others precious pets and hunting mates and so on? Out of special
selected lines.
-  Do any body have an opinion about this Q.?
Tarek OUESLATI
Doctorant
Archéozoologie et Histoire des sociétés
Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
Lab. d'Anat. Comparée
55 rue Buffon
75005 Paris
Tel 01 40 79 33 13
Fax 01 40 79 33 14
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