Dr. Selina Brace

It would have had a nutritional function for them.

This is the Paleolithic, after all.

You have to make use of the resources that you have.

But there is more.

it isn't just basic nutritional requirement associated with this dog, because we also see these post-mortem modifications.

There's aspects of this mandible that were treated after the animal had died by the humans, one would assume that they're human companions.

And this is that they actually make a hole in the mandible.

And this is important.

Why waste

time, energy doing this if this animal to you did not have some significance.

They make a perforation in it for what?

We don't know for sure.

One can imagine lots of different ways they may have used that or why.

But the fact is that they actually do something with these remains more akin to a ritual modification rather than it being a basic nutritional requirement for food.

And that is, I think, what sets apart this bone and the dog to the other animal remains at the site.

Yeah, so with the human remains, on the arm bone where we have the zigzag, I think that you can see as being artistic.

I think both are creative, but the arm bone one can be seen as being artistic, and on the dog bone, it's definitely modified for a purpose.

It's modified, it's creative, it's showing that there is this connection even after death.

and that it has more purpose to it.

So yeah, I think, to me anyway, it attests to that strong bond between human and dog.