Wednesday January 25, 2012
A couple of articles published in the last month or so have continued the debate as to the earliest domestication of the dog.
Images of the canid from Razboinichya Cave, Altai Mountains, Siberia
The oldest dog-like characteristics on what some scholars are now calling "European Paleodogs" is still from Goyet Cave in Belgium, but the two new articles are supporting evidence that the transition from wolf to dog was in Europe or Eurasia about 35,000 years ago. Calling this "domestication" is problematic, which is after all what archaeology is all about anyway.
Germonpré M, Láznicková-Galetová M, and Sablin MV. 2012. Palaeolithic dog skulls at the Gravettian Predmostí site, the Czech Republic. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(1):184-202.
Ovodov ND, Crockford SJ, Kuzmin YV, Higham TFG, Hodgins GWL, and van der Plicht J. 2011. A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum. PLoS ONE 6(7):e22821. Open Access
Monday January 23, 2012
Mongooses (Herpestes spp) are kind of like cats, in that they really never became what you could call domesticated, but they do make great pets. Like cats, they also make for an interesting story on their quasi-domestication, nonetheless.
Egyptian Mongoose - Herpestes ichneumon, 1780 drawing by Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber. Image by Nordelch
Native to Africa and Asia, the Egyptian mongoose was brought to southwestern Iberia in the 7th century AD, when the Umayyad dynasty of the Islamic civilization conquered what is today the Andalusian region of Portugal and Spain. In the process, the Umayyads and their successors unarguably established a terrifically blended culture in the form of art, music, food and architecture. According to recent research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science last month, they also brought with them their pet mongooses.
Friday January 20, 2012
Butrint, on the coast of Albania across from the island of Corfu, is an astonishing blend of architecture. Founded in the 6th century BC, the strategically important port was owned by Greeks, Romans, Normans, Venetians, Byzantines and Ottomans, all of whom left their imprint on the city's architecture.
Portion of a mosaic installed for the emperor Justinian in his 5th century basilica at Butrint. Photo by PawelMM
The astounding architectural variety of Butrint's ruins (second only to Constantinople in Turkey) owes a lot to its location on a promontory jutting into the Mediterranean. There it played crucial roles in battles for trade supremacy by both the Roman Caesar Augustus and the Ottoman Pasha of Ioannina, some 18 centuries later. But really, you should read all about it...
- Butrint, Albania, my summary of the history and recent archaeological research there
- Explore Butrint, the official webpage
Wednesday January 18, 2012
Shillourokambos is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) site on the island of Cyprus, at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea and not terribly far from the more-famous and visitable Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins at Limassol.
Location of Shillourokambos in Cyprus. CIA World Factbook 1982.
Excavated between 1992 and 2004, and occupied between 9,000-10,500 years ago, Shillourokambos holds evidence of the early process of animal management and domestication, of animals as diverse as cats, cattle and wild pigs. Although Cyprus was never closer than 50 miles or so from the mainlands of what are now Turkey and Syria, the PPNB occupants shipped in most of their animals and plants they lived on, the obsidian they used to make stone tools and many of their ideas of architecture and religion from their Levantine PPNB relatives, all of which makes Shillourokambos indeed an important site for understanding the PPNB.
