Did Australia's First Peoples domesticate dingoes? They certainly buried them with great care

Dingo tracks in the red desert sand of central Australia. Shutterstock^[7]

Read more: New DNA testing shatters 'wild dog' myth: most dingoes are pure^[8]

But is it possible different arrangements between dingoes and Australia’s First Peoples existed before traditional ways of life were disrupted by colonial violence, displacement and disease? Answers might be found in the bones of dingoes that lived with people and were buried after death.

There are historical accounts of funerary and burial rituals of deceased tamed dingoes. Skeletons of dingoes or dogs have been found alongside First Peoples’ burials in many areas of Australia from Arnhem Land^[9] to the Murray-Darling^[10] basin, but to date there’s been no comprehensive study of this important cultural practice.

In a search of historical records and findings of dingo burials, we found they were concentrated in the Murray-Darling Basin and on the southern coastlines of New South Wales and Victoria. A secondary, more recent cluster was located in north-western Australia.

Map of Australia illustrating the distribution of dingo burials reported in archaeological, historical and news literature. Loukas Koungoulos, CC BY-SA^[11]

Buried alongside people

Historical records and archaeological evidence both show that when dingoes were buried, it was invariably in the manner in which people were buried in the same region. Often, dingoes were buried alongside people.

The act of burial implies a degree of care and belonging to a community. Some archaeologists argue animal burial is a fundamental sign of domestication^[12]. But by examining the skeletons of buried dingoes we can further investigate the life histories of these important animals.

The archaeological site of Curracurrang, a rock shelter in the Royal National Park just south of Sydney, was excavated in the 1960s^[13]. The excavations found First People were buried there over many centuries.

But our new primary investigations of previously unstudied animal bones reveal the site also contained the skeletons of several dingoes. Radiocarbon dates taken from their bones found the earliest of these were buried around 2,300–2,000 years ago. Dingo burials continued here until the colonial era.

Mandibular and dental fragments of one of the dingo burials from Curracurrang; this was an elderly individual with highly worn teeth, suggesting a lifetime of crunching bones discarded by people. Loukas Koungoulos, CC BY-SA^[14]

Some of the dingoes were adults, at least six to eight years old – well past the age at which they’d be expected to return to the wild to breed. They had severely worn teeth, indicating a diet heavy in large bones, likely from the scraps of human meals.

In addition, one dingo showed signs of suffering from an aggressive, mobility-restricting form of cancer in the last weeks of its life. It was likely looked after by people during its decline.

Several other burials were pups, less than a month or two in age. Since dingoes of breeding age were also found at Curracurrang, it is entirely probable some of these pups were born there but did not survive long, and were buried soon after. These individuals are the first known evidence of dingo pup burial in Australia.

Read more: Barkindji custodians near Broken Hill continue to care for ancestral dingo remains with help from archaeologists^[15]

A previously obscured relationship

Dingo burials reveal aspects of the relationship between Australia’s First Peoples and their dingo companions which had been, until now, obscured.

At Curracurrang, tame dingoes lived to advanced ages alongside people. They ate the same foods and possibly even bore litters of pups within human camps. While traditional views of domestication involve dramatic transformations in appearance^[16] and human control over animal reproduction, newer perspectives focus on long-lasting relationships between people and animals.

The evidence from Curracurrang suggests some dingoes, at least in certain settings, were domesticated in ancient times. This doesn’t mean all dingoes were domesticated, nor does it conclusively indicate they originate from domestic dogs.

Most dingoes were, and still are, wild animals with various adaptations to life independent of people in Australian environments.

However, the new findings do mark an important development in our understanding of the deep antiquity and closeness of the connection between Australia’s First Peoples and their native dogs. It attests to long-lasting relationships beyond the transient, temporary associations recorded during the colonial era.

Acknowledgments: we are grateful to the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and community for their permission to undertake research on the Curracurrang dingo remains. We also give thanks to the Australian Museum for facilitating access to these materials.

Read more https://theconversation.com/did-australias-first-peoples-domesticate-dingoes-they-certainly-buried-them-with-great-care-205994