Short article
Humans since the Bronze age have been domesticating animals such as dogs, these are thought to have played an important role as working animals in the great migrations. It is supposed these animals were used to pull sleds. A new discovery has been made in the Iberian Peninsula though, along with finding dogs buried with human remains there were also a few foxes.
The domestication of these animals were observed through the study of their diet by analysis of stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in bone collagen. This was also supported by archaeozoological, anthropological and archaeobotanical studies.The results indicate that the dogs' diet was similar to that of humans. There was also an observation of skeletal defects previously only found in North America.
"These specimens also show signs of disorders in the spinal column linked to the transport of heavy objects." says Silvia Albizuri Canadell, co-author of the work.
What was unusual is that one of the foxes was also found to have been fed a similar diet to the dogs, not only this but a recently broken leg was discovered which had human intervention in healing.
Link to study Grandal-d’Anglade, A., Albizuri, S., Nieto, A. et al. Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00781-z
Article sourced; eurekalert.org