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Archaeologists from Swedish National Historical Museums have uncovered an unusual and remarkably well-preserved dog burial believed to date to c.5,000 years ago at a site in Logsjömossen, near Järna, south-west of Stockholm.
Excavations revealed the remains of a large male dog, 52cm tall at the withers; the animal had been active in life and was 3-6 years old at the time of death. The skeleton was found intact, although the skull was in several fragments, apparently crushed before the burial was deposited. What made the find particularly exciting, though, was the finely polished bone dagger discovered directly next to the dog’s paws. This 25cm-long object, believed to date to the Neolithic, was probably made from the metatarsal bone of an elk or red deer, and has a hole cut at the shaft.
Today, Logsjömossen is covered by a peat bog, but several thousand years ago it would have been a shallow lake used for fishing. The deceased dog and the dagger are therefore believed to have been placed in some kind of skin bag or container, filled with stones, which was taken c.30-40m out into the lake and lowered to a depth of 1.5m. This was probably a ceremonial act of some kind: the Neolithic practice of symbolically depositing finely crafted daggers in wet environments is seen at several other sites in Sweden, and the use of dogs in ritual activities is a known phenomenon as well, although the discovery of the two together has few parallels.
Other evidence of human activity at the ancient lake dating to the same period includes well-preserved wooden stakes and posts driven into the lakebed, which may have formed parts of platforms along the shore. There are several fishing-related finds, such as stones that functioned as net sinkers and a 2m-long ancient fishing trap of interwoven wooden rods. We can even see places where the lakebed was trampled by people moving about, perhaps checking their traps.
Further conservation and analysis of finds from this site will tell us more about the dog, including when it lived and what it ate, which in turn will reveal more about the Neolithic humans who were present here.
Text: Amy Brunskill / Image: Arkeologerna
