The deposition of dogs (Canis familiaris) at Satu Nou – Valea lui Voicu (Babadag culture)
The deposition of dogs (Canis familiaris) at Satu Nou – Valea lui Voicu (Babadag culture)

Summary/Abstract: The archaeozoological study carried out in Satu Nou – Valea lui Voicu (Oltina, Constanța County) provides new information on the relationship between humans and dogs in the early period of the Iron Age. Thus, numerous bones from several dogs (Canis familiaris) were identified in the feature called “ditch or gully” and in a pit (Pit 41). The authors of the research attributed this context, stratigraphically considered the oldest, to the Babadag culture (10th–9th centuries BC). The studied group includes the complete and partial skeletons of 14 individuals (12 identified in the ditch and two in Pit 41), unearthed in the 1991–1992 seasons. Some dogs (at least four individuals) were slaughtered by blows to the skull and / or were eaten (at least five individuals) as evidenced by the disarticulation and defleshing cut marks identified on the bones. Given the special archaeological situation at Satu Nou, the phenomenon of cynophagy must be viewed in a ritual and funerary context.Of the 14 dogs, two are certainly males, two are possibly males and four are possibly females. The animals were predominantly slaughtered at a young age: nine are subadults (between 8 and 18 months) and five are adults. The average withers height of these animals is 50.2 cm (n = 5; limits 46–55.6 cm) after Koudelka and 51 cm (n = 5; limits 47.4–56.8 cm) after Harcourt; the gracility index average is 7.4 (n = 5; limits 6.6–8.3). These figures describe medium-sized and above-average dogs of medium robustness. It is very interesting that nine of these individuals have extremely varied pathologies affecting various anatomical parts, from the skull to the phalanges. Most of these pathologies healed in the individuals’ lifetime, but they illustrate that these animals have gone through various accidents or traumas, some of them at relatively young ages.In general, the dog had a wide range of attributes: psychopomp creature, companion of the warrior and hunter, and also guardian of the home, with a therapeutic and purifying role. In our case the dog was sacrificed (sometimes violently), deposed as an offering and sometimes probably ritually consumed. It should not be omitted that in the same ditch from Valea lui Voicu were identified human bones (from 26 individuals), pottery, but also numerous animals remains that could have been part of the funerary banquets that probably took place in this area. The association of all these archaeological, anthropological and archaeozoological materials may suggest the existence of dog sacrifices at the funerals of the deceased (as their companions) and the deposition of a part of the animal near the body, while the rest of the animal was consumed during the funerary ceremony.

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