ABSTRACT

Archaeological assemblages, texts, and iconography indicate a multifaceted, yet often ignored, canine economy in the ancient eastern Mediterranean and Near East. This economy included not only dogs’ celebrated roles as hunting aids, guards, village scavengers, and companions, but also the regular processing, use, and consumption of dogs for foods, hides, and medicinal/ritual purposes. Drawing on ethnohistorical information and zooarchaeological data from three Chalcolithic/Bronze Age sites—Tell Surezha (Iraq), Mycenae (Greece), and Acemhöyük (Turkey)—we emphasize evidence for the processing of dog carcasses, which reflect a range of post-mortem treatments of dog bodies. We suggest the widespread use of primary products from dogs, features of an ancient canine economy that are rarely reported on in depth and often explained away as aberrations by modern scholars of the region. We speculate that this neglect stems in part from analysts’ taboos on cynophagy (unconsciously) influencing archaeological reconstructions of dog use in the past.

摘要

考古学的组合，文字和图像说明了古代东部地中海和近东的多方面但经常被忽视的犬类经济。这种经济不仅包括狗作为狩猎辅助工具，警卫，乡村拾荒者和陪伴者的著名角色，还包括狗的日常加工，使用和消费，以用于食物，生皮和医药/礼节目的。利用来自三个石器时代/铜器时代遗址的民族历史信息和动物考古学数据（Tell Surezha（伊拉克），Mycenae（希腊）和Acemhöyük（土耳其）），我们强调了处理尸体的证据，这些证据反映了一系列死后的情况。狗的身体治疗。我们建议广泛使用狗的初级产品，古代犬类经济的特征很少被深入报道，并且经常被该地区的现代学者解释为畸变。我们推测，这种忽视的部分原因是分析家对食盲症的禁忌（无意识地）影响了过去狗的考古重建。