Dog burials

Species reidentification and burial context analysis
of 34 artifacts made from the cut-and-drilled
mandibles and maxillae of coyotes, wolves, cougars,
and bears recovered from Illinois Hopewellian
mounds over the past century provide new
perspectives on the variety of forms, mortuary
associations, species-specific uses, and symbolic
significance of these artifacts. Fragments
of eight modified canid and felid “predator jaw”
artifacts, including those from five canids (three
probable coyotes and two wolves), a cougar,
and a bobcat, are also documented from four
west-central Illinois Middle Woodland habitation
sites. Correcting the distressingly common
species misidentifications of these artifacts in
the archaeological literature has also led to new
interpretations of the modification and use of 14
black bear maxillae artifacts, many of which are
identified here for the first time, found in Illinois
Hopewellian mortuary contexts.

Ancient Native American use of caves in the Eastern Woodlands occurred throughout the entire span of regional prehistory; however, the ways that these natural features were used varied considerably over time. To date only 25 cave sites containing deposits dated to the Archaic period (ca. 10,000 - 3000 B.P.) are recorded in the state of Tennessee, representing just 0.4 percent of the total known Archaic sites. In 2014 the authors conducted a salvage operation, bucket auger survey, and limited testing at the site of Black Cat Cave (40RD299) in Rutherford County, Tennessee to assess looting damage and assist in the installation of a security gate across the cave entrance. These investigations identified Black Cat Cave as the site of significant mortuary activity during the Middle Archaic (ca. 6460 - 6360 B.P.), and resulted in the recovery of rare Archaic faunal data from a cave setting. Analysis of faunal materials from the site allows us to add important new information to our understanding of ancient Native American landscape use in the Eastern Woodlands during the mid-Holocene.

A 19th-century dog burial uncovered from a historical homelot in Toronto, Canada, provided a unique opportunity to reconstruct the individual's osteobiography. Of particular interest are the dog's very large size and a suite of skeletal pathologies. Recovery of a nearly complete skeleton combined with the use of x-rays and micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) allowed for a discriminating differential diagnoses. Stable isotope analyses were applied to investigate questions of diet. Results reveal an individual who suffered greatly from disease towards the end of his life and hint at its owners attitudes towards dogs. The interdisciplinary approach applied to this case study highlights the potential information obtainable from pet burials. We argue that better analyses and reporting of pet burials will help address research questions targeting broader themes related to human-animal relationships.

This paper focuses on the significance of the finding of skeletal remains of dogs in an archeological excavation, through the case study of the mixed human/dog cemetery, that was excavated in Via Tommaso Gar (TN) in 2009 by the Soprintendenza per I Beni Archeologici di Trento, under the supervision of the officer Cristina Bassi.
The burial area - dated to III century A.C. on the basis of the grave goods -consisted in 23 human burials (7 adults, 4 infans, 12 individuals who died in perinatal age), and 4 dog burials , all adults dog, disposed beside a long wall, not completely excavated. 
In this site there was a clear association between the dog burials and the graves of some individuals died in perinatal age, probably fetuses or stillborn. This fact opens a discussion related to the role of the dogs, whose presence in ritual situations is commonly interpreted as having an archaic expiatory and purifying function, that is well-documented in Mediterranean area.
In particular in this work both archeological, anthropological and archaeozoological analysis contribute to examine - in an interdisciplinary process - the association to animal burials to graves of individuals considered as particular or dangerous in ancient cultures. In the case of the cemetery of Via Tommaso Gar we could appreciate the dog offering as an important grave goods for the little child that venture in the word of spirits, as a companion ad a protector.
But another possible interpretation regards the role of the dogs as guardians, connected to the concept of limes between the world of the livings and the word of the dead; in this case the sacrifice assumes another light, and the dogs acquires the role of champion of livings against the dead, in particular a kind of dead that has not a distinct status as a stillborn (someone who died at birth, and could be conceived as an open door on the afterworld).
In this paper we will debate about this double interpretation at the light of all the crossed interdisciplinary data at our disposal, trying to understand an uncommon ritual that swing between necrophilia and necrophobia.