I would have liked to see the article address this. I think it is pretty easy for an osteologist to tell if a mammal is mature based on the fusion of the long bones, but I'd be interested to hear more.
It was not a puppy according to this quote from the Telegraph article:
Maiya Pina-Dacier, an archaeologist with DigVentures, said that this dog was fully grown when it died and so tiny, it must have been “adorable”: “In previous periods, you don’t get evidence of pets like this. But, when the Romans arrive, you start finding signs of smaller dogs.”
> Breeding tiny dogs as pets “seems to be a Roman phenomenon that I suspect ties in with conspicuous consumption by the elite and other attempts at wealth and showiness,” ...
I am not sure this is the only path for dogs to be "tiny". In nature, animal divergence based on environment can and does occur quite frequently. I can easily see dogs specialize in hunting for specific food sources and over generations adjust to be better hunters.
Yeah that seems like a politically motivated conclusion. Most of the modern small dog breeds were originally bred to do things like hunt badgers in small burrows. It was probably so in the past as well, even if those reasons have been lost to time.
I think the archaeologist's conclusion is motivated by resentment of the 'elite'. He finds a small dog skeleton and concludes that it's evidence of elites flexing on plebs. This interpretation of the evidence is motivated by his personal political feelings.
Eh... seems like a bit of a stretch; it's 1800 years ago, and the fact that wealthy Romans in the 3rd century tended to be a bit on the comically decadent side isn't exactly news.
However, this would have been something of a political issue _at the time_; there is absolutely _nothing_ that Romans loved so much as moaning about other Romans being decadent. Arguably, if this was common practice, we might expect to documentary evidence in such moaning-oriented writings. :)
> Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts tell of large numbers of dogs being served at banquets.[5] Aztec merchant feasts could have 80–100 turkeys and 20–40 dogs served as food.[6]
how would you distinguish beloved pets from food animals? well, plausibly by quantity, or by the form of burial. perhaps the villa only had one or two lap dogs?
> The pint-sized pup is one of 15 small- to medium-sized dogs discovered at the villa.
That's fascinating, especially this bit at the end:
The gene for chondrodysplasia in various short-legged breeds has been confirmed to trace back to a single ancestral mutation [presumably from Egypt, as the Egyptians since short legged dogs had been found in Egyptian households dating back thousands of years.
Egypt was also thousands of years in advance of modern pet keeping by quasi-domesticating Ball Pythons.
> how would you distinguish beloved pets from food animals? well, plausibly by quantity, or by the form of burial. perhaps the villa only had one or two lap dogs?
The context of the burial is always important. The bones from cooked animals would most often end up in huge quantities in a midden rather than buried alone or with their owners. Any objects found with the remains like a collar or harness are also useful details.
The condition of the skeleton itself usually tells the story: pets are generally in the best shape. Beasts of burden have signs of repetitive stress while animals that were eaten most often have cut marks on their bones where tools were used to clean the carcass and prepare the meat. An animal like a dog might be prepared bone-in so the chemistry of the bones themselves can also indicate whether they were cooked or not.
it is true, as far as i know, that we have no records of the romans eating dogs
but nothing about the romans is simple
there are many foods the romans commonly ate (in rome, during at least some of its near-millennium of culinary change) that few or none of their modern descendants do. these include silphium, garum, liquamen, mallow leaves, marinated sow udders, peacock, flamingo, emmer, lamprey, lamprey semen, sea urchins, bitter vetch, dormice, azerole, open-arse, and raisin wine; most of these were considered delicacies, which is how we know about the romans eating them at all
we do know that the romans did ritually sacrifice dogs in rome, and they claim that the oscans (another italic people) roasted dogs as part of a ritual sacrifice, so romans eating dogs, even in rome, seems plausible to me
moreover, we're talking about an outlying province, 1400 km from the capital, with the potential for significantly different local customs — even if there were no oscans in the legions
I don't get saying that is has legs and body like a dachshund and then conclude that its not the body of a hunting dog. Dachhunds whole layout is how it is to facilitate hunting.
> Dachshunds are extremely intelligent dogs who are brave and tough in the face of danger. They had to be, in order to win a battle with a fierce badger.
You need a several Dachshunds to take out a badger. Some will probably die during the hunt. Badgers are larger and have much bigger teeth and huge claws. What is that tiny dog's face going to be able to do?
They also used to arrange fights to bet on called Badger Baiting...
The picture absolutely looks Dachsund-like. Why it would be compared to a Chihuahua is beyond me. Maybe Chihuahua in Rome is better clickbait because everyone knows Dachshunds are from Europe already.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 82.4 ms ] thread>This, along with the fact that she might have even been buried with her owner, makes it far more likely that she was kept as a house dog
Based on certain details we're lacking, this is either heartwarming or disturbing.
It was not a puppy according to this quote from the Telegraph article:
Maiya Pina-Dacier, an archaeologist with DigVentures, said that this dog was fully grown when it died and so tiny, it must have been “adorable”: “In previous periods, you don’t get evidence of pets like this. But, when the Romans arrive, you start finding signs of smaller dogs.”
I am not sure this is the only path for dogs to be "tiny". In nature, animal divergence based on environment can and does occur quite frequently. I can easily see dogs specialize in hunting for specific food sources and over generations adjust to be better hunters.
I... think the relevant politics are a bit obsolete.
However, this would have been something of a political issue _at the time_; there is absolutely _nothing_ that Romans loved so much as moaning about other Romans being decadent. Arguably, if this was common practice, we might expect to documentary evidence in such moaning-oriented writings. :)
> The tiny pup was likely a beloved pet, not an animal bred for hunting or herding
uhh those aren't the only three possibilities tho
wikipedia on the history of actual chihuahuas:
> In a letter written in 1520, Hernan Cortés wrote that the Aztecs raised and sold little dogs as food.
and in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xoloitzcuintle:
> Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts tell of large numbers of dogs being served at banquets.[5] Aztec merchant feasts could have 80–100 turkeys and 20–40 dogs served as food.[6]
how would you distinguish beloved pets from food animals? well, plausibly by quantity, or by the form of burial. perhaps the villa only had one or two lap dogs?
> The pint-sized pup is one of 15 small- to medium-sized dogs discovered at the villa.
uhh eww
(as the article points out, though, conspicuous consumption with show dogs is also a possibility)
in any case once you have a kennel full of dogs, they mostly aren't beloved pets anymore
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnspit_dog
The gene for chondrodysplasia in various short-legged breeds has been confirmed to trace back to a single ancestral mutation [presumably from Egypt, as the Egyptians since short legged dogs had been found in Egyptian households dating back thousands of years.
Egypt was also thousands of years in advance of modern pet keeping by quasi-domesticating Ball Pythons.
The context of the burial is always important. The bones from cooked animals would most often end up in huge quantities in a midden rather than buried alone or with their owners. Any objects found with the remains like a collar or harness are also useful details.
The condition of the skeleton itself usually tells the story: pets are generally in the best shape. Beasts of burden have signs of repetitive stress while animals that were eaten most often have cut marks on their bones where tools were used to clean the carcass and prepare the meat. An animal like a dog might be prepared bone-in so the chemistry of the bones themselves can also indicate whether they were cooked or not.
If they would have, chances are we still would do it today.
but nothing about the romans is simple
there are many foods the romans commonly ate (in rome, during at least some of its near-millennium of culinary change) that few or none of their modern descendants do. these include silphium, garum, liquamen, mallow leaves, marinated sow udders, peacock, flamingo, emmer, lamprey, lamprey semen, sea urchins, bitter vetch, dormice, azerole, open-arse, and raisin wine; most of these were considered delicacies, which is how we know about the romans eating them at all
we do know that the romans did ritually sacrifice dogs in rome, and they claim that the oscans (another italic people) roasted dogs as part of a ritual sacrifice, so romans eating dogs, even in rome, seems plausible to me
moreover, we're talking about an outlying province, 1400 km from the capital, with the potential for significantly different local customs — even if there were no oscans in the legions
From this very bias source, but has a decent amount of information: https://www.dachshundstation.com/hunting-dachshunds/
You need a several Dachshunds to take out a badger. Some will probably die during the hunt. Badgers are larger and have much bigger teeth and huge claws. What is that tiny dog's face going to be able to do?
They also used to arrange fights to bet on called Badger Baiting...
Why not just say "Dachshund-like"?