The 2,000 - yr - old corpse of a cautiously decorated and advisedly immerse juvenile bobcat has scientist wondering if it ’s the first example of feline domestication in the prehistorical Americas .
The remains of the bobcat were in the beginning discovered in the 1980s at the Illinois Hopewell Burial Mounds just northerly of St. Louis . archaeologist had mistakenly identified the bones as belonging to a young dog and placed it in the archives of the Illinois State Museum in Springfield . Now , a fresh analysis by Ph.D. student Angela Perri and her team from the University of Durham in the UK , has aright identified the bones as belong to a bobcat ( Lynx rufus ) that was likely between four and seven month old when it perished . The results of their work can now be determine atMidcontinental Journal of Archaeology .
fabulously , the bobcat kitten was buried by a group of Middle Woodland Native Americans in a very human - like way , among the remains of humans and Canis familiaris . The bay lynx was embellish with a necklace made from seashells , along with a pearl carve to calculate like bear tooth ( see above ) . What ’s more , the complete skeleton showed no sign of hurt , which suggests it was n’t sacrifice .
Writing in AAAS Science News , David Grimmexplains more :
When Perri separate [ Kenneth ] Farnsworth [ a Hopewell expert at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey in Champaign ] , he was ball over . “ It shock me to my toes , ” he says . “ I ’ve never seen anything like it in almost 70 dig mounds . ” Because the mounds were intended for humans , he articulate , somebody bent the ruler to get the cat buried there . “ Somebody authoritative must have convinced other member of the society that it must be done . I ’d give anything to know why . ”
Perri , who reports the discovery with Farnsworth and another fellow this week in the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology , has her suspicions . The pomp and consideration of the burial , she says , “ suggests this animal had a very special place in the life of these masses . ” And the years of the kitty imply that the villager brought it in from the uncivilised — perhaps as an orphan — and may have tried to elevate it . Bobcats , she notes , are only about twice the size of it of a housecat and are have it off to be quite tameable . The necklace seal the deal for her . She thinks it may have been a collar , a signaling that the animal was a cherished ducky . “ This is the closest you could get to finding taming in the archaeological phonograph record , ” allege Perri , who believes the breakthrough provides a windowpane into how other animal — whether they be dogs or livestock — were bring into human society and domesticated . “ They saw the electric potential of this brute to go beyond wild . ”
The archaeologists say it ’s “ the only grace wild bozo burial in the archaeological phonograph record ” and that it “ provides compelling evidence for a complex kinship between felids and humans in the prehistoric Americas , including potential taming . ”
Alternately , the bobcat may have been buried not as a former pet , but on story of its symbolic status — potential connection to the apparitional world of the state of nature . As Grimm right points out in his article , it ’s most impossible to make a firm decision of purpose from just one specimen . Still , it ’s an incredibly unique and enchanting find .
More atAAAS Science News . And say the integral study at Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology : “ A Bobcat Burial and Other Reported Intentional Animal Burials from Illinois Hopewell Mounds . ”
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