Dogs and foxes in Early-Middle Bronze Age funerary structures in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula: human control o
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Dogs and foxes in Early-Middle Bronze Age funerary structures in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula: human control of canid diet at the sites of Can Roqueta (Barcelona) and Minferri (Lleida) Aurora Grandal-d’Anglade 1 & Silvia Albizuri 2 & Ariadna Nieto 3 & Tona Majó 4 & Bibiana Agustí 5 & Natalia Alonso 3 & Ferran Antolín 6 & Joan B. López 3 & Andreu Moya 7 & Alba Rodríguez 8 & Antoni Palomo 9 Received: 20 April 2018 / Accepted: 3 January 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Findings of canid remains in graves at different sites in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula are evidence of a widespread funerary practice that proliferated between the end of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC, in particular, in the Early-Middle Bronze Age contexts. The discovery of four foxes and a large number of dogs at the sites of Can Roqueta (Barcelona) and Minferri (Lleida) respectively, stand out among the many examples of these types of grave goods. In this work, we have made an approximation of the relationship between humans and canids through the study of their diet by analysis of stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in bone collagen. These analyses were complemented by archaeozoological, anthropological and archaeobotanical studies. The comparison of human and animal diets comprised a total of 37 canids, 19 domestic ungulates and 64 humans. The results indicate that the diet of the dogs was similar to that of humans, although δ15N values of dogs in Can Roqueta and Minferri are, on the average, 1.4‰ and 1.1‰, respectively, lower than those of humans. The offset between canids and the herbivorous ungulates of each site is not up to the established minimum for a trophic level, which implies an input of C3 plants and human intervention in the feeding of dogs and some of the foxes. Some particular cases in Can Roqueta suggest a specific food preparation, richer in cereals, for larger dogs (probably devoted to carrying loads), and possibly for at least one of the foxes. Keywords Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula . Early-Middle Bronze Age . Stable isotopes . Canid diet
Aurora Grandal-d’Anglade, Silvia Albizuri and Ariadna Nieto contributed equally to this work. * Aurora Grandal-d’Anglade [email protected] 1
Instituto Universitario de Xeoloxía, Universidade da Coruña, ESCI, Campus de Elviña, 15071 A Coruña, Galicia, Spain
2
SERP (Departament de Prehistòria, Història Antiga i Arqueologia), Universitat de Barcelona, Montealegre 6-8, 08001 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
3
GIP (Grup d’ Investigació Prehistòrica), Departament d’ Història, Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain
4
ARCHAEOM, Departament de Prehistòria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain
5
INSITU S.C.P. Arqueologia funerària, preventiva i patrimoni cultural, Centelles-Begur-Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Catalonia, Spain
6
Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science (IPNA/IPAS), Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Spalenring 145, CH-4055 Basel, Swit
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