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Crossing the boundary between humans and animals: the extinct fox Dusicyon avus from a hunter-gatherer mortuary context in Patagonia (Argentina)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2015

Luciano Prates
Luciano Prates*
Affiliation:
Conicet. Museo de La Plata, Paseo del bosque s/n, La Plata – 1900, Argentina
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Abstract

The discovery of a grave of the late second millennium BC containing an extinct South American fox, Dusicyon avus, at Loma de los Muertos raises intriguing questions about the relationship between wild canids and humans. This sub-adult individual appears to have been buried in a human mortuary context in a comparable manner to adjacent human burials. It may have been kept as a pet and been considered part of the human social group. The ability of pets, especially canids, to leave the animal world and enter into a special relationship with people may be related to the cosmology of South American hunter-gatherers.

Keywords

PatagoniacanidDusicyon avusgrave goodsanimal burialshousehold animals
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 342 , December 2014 , pp. 1201 - 1212
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2014

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