Dogs in charge Clarification
I’m a volunteer for the cba’s planning casework, and a lifelong history and archaeology enthusiast. On seeing the excellent new British Archaeology,
I was overjoyed to read about the relationship between dogs and humans, especially the idea that this goes back to the Palaeolithic (News Jul/Aug 2019/167). I’ve long thought that this ancient partnership has been seriously overlooked. Until now, dog remains in burials have seemingly been largely ignored, or attributed to modern concepts of “pet ownership”.
My own view is that, around the end of the last Ice Age or before, when humans and animals were on the move finding new territories, a social group who had a team of dogs would have terrific advantages over any neighbours who did not, perhaps securing their very survival chances. Dogs would clear up food waste, guard against vermin/predators/enemies, help to keep everyone warm, and protect women and children when the chaps were off hunting. The dog is probably the prime mammal which studies the human face, understands some speech, senses illness, finds comfort in “cuddles”, licks wounds clean and unquestioningly supports its “owner”.
Perhaps the most important factor was the hunt. Men with dogs would have access to speed, distance, acute hearing, stamina, stealth, protection, fearlessness and transportation. Spare kit, bigger kills and injured hunters could be dragged home on sleds.
I think the dogs were in charge! They just needed the opportunity to join families as they started to settle in a territory, and share the spoils in return for shelter.
Did dogs accompany people on journeys to funerals, festivals and clangatherings? Would dogs have been traded in a similar way that people found new partners and traded skills, equipment and artefacts? In Victorian England dogs were sold at hiring and horse fairs for herding, racing, ratting and hunting, and performing dogs accompanied travelling entertainers. More controversially, did dogs throughout history help humans to socialise with each other just as they do today, as fellow dog-walkers get to know others, admire their dogs and enjoy the harmony which most dogs bring (and help overcome loneliness)? Deborah Klein, Leominster
I understand that some people were concerned about the cartoon that appeared with the Spoilheap column in the last edition (Jul/Aug 2019/167). Frank Somers, of Amesbury Stonehenge Druids, wrote to the cba to say that he had heard about the cartoon, and that the depiction of a Druid beheaded by Roman soldiers at Stonehenge was “repugnant and offensive... [and] wellintentioned but in very poor taste”. I am happy to put on record that, in Somers' words, the “cartoon in no way indicates that violence against Druids is acceptable or that Druids are the main opposition to the a303 tunnel”. Ed