When roaming groups of hunter-gatherers tamed the wolves that scavenged their leftovers at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, they laid the groundwork for the lovable and adoring canines we cherish today.
However, dogs were not the only ancient canines to form bonds with humans. Evidence of foxes living among early communities in South America has been discovered by archaeologists. This includes the nearly intact skeleton of an extinct fox found in northwestern Patagonia.
A group of researchers recently analyzed the fox’s bones, which were uncovered alongside the remains of numerous hunter-gatherers. The team’s conclusions, released in the journal Royal Society Open Science on Tuesday, suggest that this fox coexisted with the humans it was buried with.
“It seems to have been deliberately buried within this human burial ground,” explained Ophélie Lebrasseur, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the study. “This is a practice that had been theorized previously, but actually finding evidence of it is a pleasant surprise.”
According to Dr. Lebrasseur, most archaeological discoveries related to South American canids typically consist of isolated bones or teeth.
However, a nearly complete skeleton of a fox-like animal was found during excavations at the Cañada Seca burial site in central Argentina in 1991.
The site, accidentally uncovered by local clay miners, also contained the remains of at least 24 human individuals and artifacts such as necklace beads, lip ornaments, and spear points. Analysis of the human bones at the site indicated that these people lived approximately 1,500 years ago and led a nomadic way of life.
Initially identified as a Lycalopex, a group of fox-like canids that are still alive today, the Cañada Seca canid skeleton was later determined to be the extinct Dusicyon avus, or D. avus, a medium-sized fox resembling a jackal and weighing as much as a small sheepdog. D. avus inhabited grasslands across a large portion of Patagonia from the late ice age until about 500 years ago. It was closely related to the Falkland Islands wolf, which became extinct in 1876.
Dr. Lebrasseur collaborated with Cinthia Abbona, a biologist at the Institute of Evolution, Historical Ecology, and Environment in Argentina, as well as several other researchers to definitively confirm the identity of this skeleton. They analyzed samples of the animal’s forearm and vertebrae for traces of ancient DNA.
Despite the degraded state of the ancient DNA, the team managed to reconstruct some of the fox’s genetic code. By comparing it to complete genomes from domestic dogs and existing South American canids like the closely related maned wolf, the researchers strengthened the case for the animal buried at the Cañada Seca site being D. avus.
The genetic analysis also helped dispel the theory that these ancient foxes were wiped out due to hybridization. Some scientists believed that when domestic dogs arrived in Patagonia around 900 years ago, they interbred with foxes, leading to diluted gene pools and potentially producing hybrid hounds that could outcompete purebred foxes.
However, Dr. Lebrasseur and her colleagues concluded that the extinct foxes were likely too genetically distinct from domestic dogs to produce viable offspring. Instead, human influence on the local environment and changing climate were more likely factors in the species’ extinction.
Another puzzle was why the fox’s remains were buried at the Cañada Seca burial site. The radiocarbon dating of the fox’s bones matched the ages of the human bones at the site. Similar preservation of both species’ bones suggested they were buried simultaneously.
Furthermore, the researchers examined isotopic signatures in the fox’s teeth. While most wild canids primarily consume meat, a portion of the fox’s diet consisted of plant material resembling maize. This corresponded to the amount of plant material consumed by the humans interred at Cañada Seca.
This new discovery contributes to the mounting evidence that foxes and other native canids played significant roles in ancient South American societies. Ornaments made from the teeth of fox-like culpeos adorn human remains at burial sites in Peru and Argentina. Archaeological findings in Chile indicate that other canids were also part of the local diet.
“An animal that eats like humans and is buried like them must have had a close connection with them,” remarked Aurora Grandal-d’Anglade, a zooarchaeologist at the University of A Coruña in Spain, who was not involved in the study.
This relationship between foxes and ancient humans may have been established through regular feeding. Dr. Grandal-d’Anglade, who has studied fox remains found in Bronze Age deposits on the Iberian Peninsula, suggested that it is conceivable that the foxes were kept solely as companions.
While it seems that this fox lived alongside early hunter-gatherers in the region, Dr. Lebrasseur expressed caution about cuddling up with it on the sofa.
“I believe the animal was likely domesticated, but not something you would consider a typical pet,” she remarked.
