Crossing the boundary between humans and animals. The extinct fox (Dusicyon avus) in a mortuary hunter-gatherer context of Patagonia (Río Negro, Argentina). Antiquity

PRATES, L.

ANTIQUITY

Durham University

Lugar: Durham; Año: 2014 vol. 88 p. 1 - 13

0003-598X

The discovery of a grave of the late second millennium BC containing an extinct South American fox, Dusicyon avus, at Loma de los Muertos raises intriguing questions about the relationship between wild canids and human societies. The body of this sub-adult individual appears to have been buried in a mortuary context in a comparable manner to adjacent human burials. It is suggested that it may have been kept as a pet and been considered part of the human social group. The ability of pets, and especially canids, to leave the animal world and enter into a special relationship with humans may be related to the cosmology of South American hunter-gatherers and the need to placate the ?masters of the animals?.