Author Topic: Man's best meal: Bone fragment confirms dogs were bred for food 9,400 years ago  (Read 3082 times)

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Offline bijou

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Man's best friend has long provided protection and companionship.

But researchers now believe that 10,000 years ago, dogs were not only our loyal friends, but sometimes also our meals.

They found a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.

Samuel Belknap III, a University of Maine graduate student, came across the fragment while analysing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in south-west Texas in the 1970s.


A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog - not a wolf, coyote or fox, Mr Belknap said.

The fragment was found deep inside a pile of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown colour that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract.

It provides the earliest direct evidence that dogs - besides being there for company, security and hunting - were eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source, he said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1348546/Bone-fragment-confirms-dogs-bred-food-9-400-years-ago.html#ixzz1BUVk4Slm



Offline Thor

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A man's gotta eat.........
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Offline Celtic Rose

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Is this news?  I remember discussing that they bred dogs for food in Mexico and South America in one of my college history classes.  The only new part might be the age of the bone fragment.

Offline ExGeeEye

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I keep trying to tell folks that if TSHTF as bad as some think it will (I'm leaning that way myself) the first ones to get over their cultural revulsion to eating dogs and cats will have a greater chance of survival.

I don't know if I'm ready to go hunting thru the neighborhood with a pocketful of .22, but I realize that in the final analysis meat is meat.
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Offline thundley4

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I keep trying to tell folks that if TSHTF as bad as some think it will (I'm leaning that way myself) the first ones to get over their cultural revulsion to eating dogs and cats will have a greater chance of survival.

I don't know if I'm ready to go hunting thru the neighborhood with a pocketful of .22, but I realize that in the final analysis meat is meat.

If TSHTF, then dogs will be as useful then as they were for what they were bred for. Protection and warning of the tribes and assistance in hunting. Even the little annoying ankle biters would serve as an alarm of sorts for trespassers.

Offline bijou

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Is this news?  I remember discussing that they bred dogs for food in Mexico and South America in one of my college history classes.  The only new part might be the age of the bone fragment.
Actually the interesting bit is that it seems that people might have eaten bones then!



Offline Celtic Rose

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Actually the interesting bit is that it seems that people might have eaten bones then!

Oh, that is an excellent point!

Offline Wineslob

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Reminds me of the time a Vietnamese co worker bought in some damn tasty egg rolls.

After eating one I asked, "what kind of meat is in this?"

"It's meat!" he replied.

Thank God I found out his white wife made them.
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Offline thundley4

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One instance of finding one small bone fragment indicates the possibility that dogs were bred for food?  That is stretching it a bit, imo. More likely that the dog had died of natural causes or it was eaten during a time of poor hunting.  Then again, maybe it died during a hunt and was consumed as a means of honoring it or absorbing it's strength.  The researcher is a cat person, I'll bet.

Offline JohnnyReb

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I remember being told a story about my grandfather. While he, my grandmother and my mom (when she was a baby), were in Jamaica, my grandfather went and had dinner with some local folks. He really enjoyed dinner, I am told. He inquired as to what the meat was that was served. The host replied, "dog". My grandfather promptly went over and threw up.

While I'm not ready to just go out and kill a dog and eat it, I have to aversion to doing so. Before this past summer, we had a significant number of cats. We also had some raccoons, squirrels and there are some coyotes that wander through here. I've always considered them as an alternative food source in a time of crisis.
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Offline vesta111

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I remember being told a story about my grandfather. While he, my grandmother and my mom (when she was a baby), were in Jamaica, my grandfather went and had dinner with some local folks. He really enjoyed dinner, I am told. He inquired as to what the meat was that was served. The host replied, "dog". My grandfather promptly went over and threw up.

While I'm not ready to just go out and kill a dog and eat it, I have to aversion to doing so. Before this past summer, we had a significant number of cats. We also had some raccoons, squirrels and there are some coyotes that wander through here. I've always considered them as an alternative food source in a time of crisis.

I am trying to remember here, is it the white dog in Korea that is preferred and the black dog in the Phillipeans or visa verse.??