Researchers have discovered evidence that humans in ancient times had a profound bond with an unlikely companion: an extinct fox.
The discovery of fox remains at a 1,500-year-old human burial site in Argentina raises the idea that the animal was kept as a pet.
Companion To Hunter-Gatherers
Experts said the remains predate the advent of domestic canines in Patagonia, which occurred between 700 and 900 years ago, with other signs indicating that the fox was valued and may even have been a companion to the hunter-gatherers with whom it lived.
The researchers re-analyzed material from a 1991 dig at the pre-Hispanic burial site of Cañada Seca, Argentina, where hunter-gatherer societies lived.
In addition to human remains, the dig found a nearly full set of bones from a dog-like species.
While the remains were initially classified as a Lycalopex fox, the team claims that analytical and genetic tests proved they belonged to Dusicyon Avus. This is a fox species that was roughly the size of a German shepherd and went extinct around 500 years ago. It had not before been known to roam in northwestern Patagonia.
The first dig was conducted to minimize looting and disturbance when the site was inadvertently found, making it difficult to determine whether the animal was buried at the same time as humans.
However, the scientist stated that there was no evidence that the fox had been eaten, and the state of preservation of the bones indicated that the animal's remains had been purposefully buried rather than left out in the open.
"Either it was a symbolic animal to the community, or it was buried when it died with its owners, or with the people that it had a particular relationship with," said Ophélie Lebrasseur of the University of Oxford, who, with Cinthia Abbona of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research in Argentina, is co-first author of the paper.
The team's radiocarbon analysis indicated that the fox lived around 1,500 years ago, making it a contemporary of the humans at the site.
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Fox's Diet
The team also carried out stable isotope analyses of the bones, a technique that allowed them to investigate the fox's diet.
While such animals are typically carnivorous, the study discovered the fox ate a diet similar to that of the humans interred at the site, including plants, probably maize.
Lebrasseur suggests that either the humans were feeding it directly or it was feeding off the refuse, but it would have been in close proximity to this site.
Lebrasseur said the discoveries were consistent with an earlier discovery of a burial site in Buenos Aires province, where the remains of a fox of the same species were discovered next to tombs from a hunter-gatherer group dating from the late second millennium BC.
The author of that paper speculated that the fox may have been kept as a pet and regarded as a member of the human social group.
Dr. Alejandro Serna, a Patagonian hunter-gatherer expert from the University of York who was not involved in the study, said the new study shed light on the complexity and diversity of human-animal relationships.
He added that given that there are cases supported by substantial evidence that precolonial dogs may have enjoyed special status among the hunter-gatherers that lived in the current Argentinian territory, it makes sense that similar species in earlier moments could have established this particular relationship with Patagonians.
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