When roving bands of hunter-gatherers tamed scavenging wolves at the end of the Pleistocene era, they set the stage for the tail-wagging, puppy-eyed canine we know and love today.
But dogs weren’t the only ancient dogs that became companions. Archaeologists have found traces of foxes living in early communities throughout South America. It includes an almost complete skeleton of an extinct fox discovered in northwestern Patagonia.
A team of researchers recently examined fox bones, unearthed from the remains of dozens of hunter-gatherers. The team’s findings, published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Sciencesuppose this fox lived next to the people where it was buried.
“It looks like it was deliberately buried inside this human cemetery,” said Ophélie Lebrasseur, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Oxford and an author of the new study. “It’s a skill that’s been suggested before, but to actually find it was a nice surprise.”
According to Dr. Lebrasseur, most archaeological traces of South American canids are usually isolated bones or teeth.
But a 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, which was accidentally excavated by local clay miners, also contains the bones of at least 24 individuals and artifacts such as necklaces, lip ornaments and spears. Analyzes of human bones at the site revealed that these people lived approximately 1,500 years ago and practiced a nomadic lifestyle.
The Cañada Seca canid skeleton was first identified as a Lycalopex, a group of extant foxlike canids. But a close examination of the creature’s teeth revealed that 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 the grasslands of a large part of Patagonia from the last ice age until about 500 years ago. It is closely related to the Falkland Islands wolf, which was hunted to extinction in 1876.
Collaborated with Dr. Lebrasseur with Cinthia Abbona, a biologist at the Institute of Evolution, Historical Ecology and Environment in Argentina, and several other researchers to confirm the identity of this structure. They took down samples of the animal’s arms and vertebrae, which they analyzed for snippets of ancient DNA.
Although the ancient DNA was damaged, the team was still able to recreate some of the fox’s genetic code. They compared it to complete genomes from domestic dogs and living South American canids, such as the closely related maned wolf. This strengthens the case that the animal buried at the Cañada Seca site is D. avus.
Genetic work has also helped disprove the theory that these ancient foxes were doomed by hybridization. Some scientists speculate that when domesticated dogs arrived in Patagonia about 900 years ago, they bred foxes. This would dilute the gene pool of foxes and potentially create hybrid hounds capable of out-breeding purebred foxes.
But Dr. discovered Lebrasseur and his colleagues concluded that the extinct foxes were probably too genetically different from domesticated dogs to produce fertile offspring. Instead, the growing influence of humans on the local environment and climate change may play a major role in the species’ demise.
Another mystery is why fox remains were buried at the Cañada Seca gravesite. The radiocarbon age of the fox bones matched the age of the human bones at the site. The similar preservation of the bones of the two species also indicates that they were buried at the same time.
Additionally, the researchers analyzed isotopic signatures preserved in the fox’s teeth. While most wild canids eat almost exclusively meat, a portion of the fox’s diet consists of corn-like plant material. This reflects the amount of plant material people eat in Cañada Seca.
The new finding adds to a growing body of evidence that foxes and other native canids were important pieces of ancient South American communities. Ornaments made from the teeth of the fox-like culpeo adorn human remains in tombs in Peru and Argentina. Archaeological deposits in Chile show that other canids were also part of the local diet.
“An animal that ate like humans and was buried like them must have been closely related to them,” said Aurora Grandal-d’Anglade, a zoo-archaeologist at the University of A Coruña in Spain, who was not involved in the study.
The relationship between the fox and ancient man may have been formed through systematic feeding. And it is plausible that foxes were used only as companions, said Dr. Grandal-d’Anglade, who studied fox remains found in Bronze Age deposits on the Iberian Peninsula.
Although this fox appears to have lived alongside the early hunters of the region, Dr. Lebrasseur that he would hesitate to hug her on the sofa.
“I think the animal was probably domesticated, but not something you would consider an actual pet,” he said.
