When roving bands of hunter-gatherers domesticated species The wolves are scavenging their waste at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, they set the stage for the tail-wagging, puppy-eyed dogs we know and love today.
But dogs weren't the only ancient canines that became companions. Archaeologists have found traces of foxes living in early communities across South America. This includes the almost complete skeleton of an extinct fox discovered in northwestern Patagonia.
A team of researchers recently examined the fox's bones, unearthed among the remains of dozens of hunter-gatherers. The team's findings, published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Scienceadmitted that this fox lived alongside the human it was buried with.
“It looks like it was intentionally buried in this human cemetery,” said Ophélie Lebrasseur, a zoo archaeologist at Oxford University and author of the new study. “It was a method that had been proposed before, but to actually find it was a pleasant surprise.”
According to Dr. Lebrasseur, most archaeological remains of South American dogs are usually isolated bones or teeth.
But the nearly complete skeleton of a fox-like animal was discovered when archaeologists excavated the Cañada Seca burial site in central Argentina in 1991.
The site, accidentally excavated by local clay miners, also contained the bones of at least 24 people and artifacts such as necklace beads, lip ornaments and spear tips. Analyzes of human bones at the site show that these people lived about 1,500 years ago and practiced a nomadic lifestyle.
The Cañada Seca canid skeleton was originally identified as Lycalopex, a group of still living fox-like canids. But closer examination of the creature's teeth showed it was more likely the extinct Dusicyon avus, or D. avus, a medium-sized fox that weighed as much as a small sheepdog and resembled a jackal. D. avus inhabited grasslands across a large area of Patagonia from the end of the ice age until about 500 years ago. It is closely related to the Falkland Islands wolf, which was hunted to extinction in 1876.
Dr. Lebrasseur collaborated with Cinthia Abbona, a biologist at the Institute of Evolution, Historical and Environmental Ecology in Argentina, and several other researchers to conclusively prove the skeleton's identity. They crushed samples of the animal's forearms and vertebrae, then they analyzed fragments of ancient DNA.
Although the ancient DNA had degraded, the team was still able to recreate some of the fox's genetic code. They compared it with the complete genomes of domestic dogs and extant South American canids, such as the closely related maned wolf. This strengthens the argument that the animal buried at the Cañada Seca site was D. avus.
Genetic work also helps refute the theory that this ancient fox species was exterminated due to interbreeding. Some scientists speculate that when domestic dogs arrived in Patagonia about 900 years ago, they bred with foxes. This would dilute the fox gene pool and potentially create hybrid hunting dogs that could compete with purebred foxes.
But Dr. Lebrasseur and her colleagues found that the extinct foxes were most likely too genetically different from domesticated dogs to produce fertile offspring. Instead, increasing human influence on the local environment and changing climate may play a larger role in the species' demise.
Another mystery is why the fox's remains were buried at the Cañada Seca burial site. The radiocarbon age of the fox bones is consistent with the age of human bones at this site. The similar preservation of the bones of the two species also suggests they were buried at the same time.
In addition, the researchers examined isotopic signatures preserved in the fox's teeth. While most wild dogs eat almost exclusively meat, part of the fox's diet includes corn-like plant material. This reflects the amount of plant material that the humans buried in Cañada Seca were eating.
This new discovery adds to evidence that foxes and other native canids were important components of ancient South American communities. Ornaments made from the teeth of fox-like foxes adorn human remains at burial sites in Peru and Argentina. Archaeological remains in Chile reveal that other canids were also part of the local diet.
“An animal that eats like humans and is buried like humans,” said Aurora Grandal-d'Anglade, a zooarchaeologist at the University of A Coruña in Spain who was not involved in the case. Surely there must be a close relationship with them.” learn.
This relationship between foxes and ancient humans may have developed through systematic feeding. And it makes sense that foxes were used only as companions, said Dr. Grandal-d'Anglade, who has studied fox remains found in Bronze Age mines on the Iberian Peninsula.
Although it seems likely that this fox lived with the first hunter-gatherers in the area, Dr. Lebrasseur said she would be hesitant to hug it on the couch.
“I think this animal may have been domesticated, but not what you would consider a real pet,” she said.
