Given that observation, it is legitimate to suggest that “Nothing signifies the social importance that people have attached to dogs more conspicuously than their deliberate interment upon death” (Morey 2006: 159). It may seem awfully self-serving to quote oneself at the beginning of a chapter, but in light of Lyman's observation, the answer to the basic question of what dog burials mean is captured by that statement. That is, people are treating dogs much like other people. The main objective in this chapter is to document and elaborate on that point, but first, it is well worth pointing out that others have also recognized the basic importance of animal burial. For example, G. Clark (1996), dealing with both prehistoric dog and pig burials from several Polynesian sites, wrote as follows: “Deliberate animal burials are the most obvious sign of a close prehistoric human-animal relationship” (G. Clark 1996: 34). Clark's work directly draws attention to the fact that dogs were not the only animals to be ritually interred at death. But other animals, with one conspicuous (localized) exception covered later, were not dealt with this way nearly as consistently as dogs. Even G. Clark's (1996: 32–33) work highlights that point, albeit not dramatically.