Long before photos of fluffy ‘fur babies’ dominated social media, and millennia before dogs were christened ‘man’s best friend’, domestic animals became an indispensable feature of human communities. These were not pets, though, but working animals: guards, hunters’ helpers, and resident pest control. When did our perception of these creatures shift from being, in essence, living tools to becoming cherished companions – and when did they make the final leap to being considered members of the family?
Dr Eric Tourigny, an archaeologist at Newcastle University, has uncovered thought-provoking – and frequently poignant – evidence of how these emotional bonds evolved, through studying one particular expression of our relationship with domestic animals: the pet cemetery. According to his research (recently published in Antiquity journal), epitaphs on over 1,000 gravestones paint a vivid picture of how, over the course of around a century, animals took an increasingly prominent position in our households, and in their owners’ hearts.
The archaeology of pets
The history of human–animal cohabitation is still being pieced together, but archaeological evidence suggests that our relationship with dogs began c.15,000 years ago (see CA 301), while cats joined us around 6,000 years later (CA 318). What is less easy to determine, though, is when we began to keep them purely for companionship. How do you spot a pet in the archaeological record? Dog burials are common finds on prehistoric and Roman sites, but do these represent the hygienic disposal of an animal that had reached the end of its working life, or an affectionate farewell to a canine chum? Conversely, does a less-formal act (in medieval contexts, dog and cat skeletons are more commonly found in rubbish heaps) convey a lack of care for the animal in life, or people acting in accordance with Christian teachings which held that animals had no souls and therefore did not require funerary rites?
Shrines to saints and Pink Floyd