Durham University

Graduate Student, Archaeology

Thesis Title: Global Foraging Adaptations to Holocene Climatic Optimum Environments: The Significance of Intentional Dog Burials as Evidence of Hunting Strategies

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Current research on the Pleistocene-Holocene climate transition shows dramatic global environmental effects. Among the changes was the establishment of a temperate broadleaf deciduous forest in parts of the northern latitudes, particularly between 30°N and 60°N. Despite much work on this transition, little is known about how human foragers adapted their hunting-gathering strategies to this new environment and its prey species. The rapid biome shift to these forests included the introduction of species of deer and boar which were regularly hunted. This work explores the role of dogs in the taking of these forest species--which are often solitary and spatially dispersed--to decrease hunting risk when adapting to a new environmental conditions.

Preliminary findings suggest significant parallel developments, including the intentional burial of domesticated dogs, characterize forager adaptations in the Archaic/Mesolithic temperate forests of several regions: Middle South U.S., Northern Europe and Eastern Japan. By the early Holocene dogs had long been domesticated, yet it is not until this time that evidence for intentional dog burials is recorded. These burials decrease substantially in number or terminate completely with the advent of agricultural dependence in each area. It is posited that these intentional dog burials are an indication of the importance of dogs in a temperate forest hunting strategy, employed simultaneously by hunter-gatherer groups across the world.

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