Until recently only a few examples of a wolf-like dog have been found in a Paleolithic context of Siberia. The best-known example was excavated fTom Afontova Gora in the late 1800s by I. T. Savenkov. As we have previously said, Afontova Gora is a multilayered, multi-locality archaeological site(s), with some five cultural horizons embedded in various locations in the riverside deposits of the Yenisei that flows through the city of Krasnoyarsk. The famous Russian natural historian and mammalian osteologist I. D. Chersky thought well of Savenkov’s find when he traveled through Krasnoyarsk in July 1885, although he himself did not study the dog remains (Ovodov and Kuzmin 2006). Afontova Gora has produced many stone and bone artifacts, faunal and human skeletal remains, and other information about the Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of the Yenisei basin. In addition, there are at least 11 carbon-14 dates for this site, ranging fTom 11 330 BP to 20 900 BP. Unfortunately, it is unknown exactly where the Afontova Gora dog remains are today or precisely where they were originally found, or if they were actually deposited during this range of late Pleistocene time. Hence, their age is uncertain, whereas the Razboinich’ya dog has much better contextual control, which places it at more than 30000 BP. In European Russia, the dog does not appear in the archaeological record until late Magdelanian times, some 18 000 years ago (Golomshtok 1938:221). Outside of Europe claims for an early dog have been made for a find in Israel (Davis and Valla 1978), and the dingo of Australia must have been derived from a wolf population in India.
Ovodov and Kuzmin (2006; Ovodov et al. 2011) provide comparative measurements for the Razboinich’ya dog skull and those of some modern wolves. The dog is smaller in most respects.
Dogs are increasingly receiving attention concerning the time and place of their domestication, their aid in human hunting in the late Pleistocene, and genetics (Koop et al. 2000,
Morey 2010, Ovodov 1999, Ovodov and Kuzmin 2006, Savolainen et al. 2002) following the pioneering dog origin studies of Stanley J. Olson (Olson and Olson 1977, Olson 1985) In addition, we consider the importance of dogs for their probable aid in human entry into the Eurasian high Arctic and the eventual crossing of Beringia (Turner 2002).
One especially critical discussion of early Eurasian dogs is by Susan J. Crockford and Yaroslav V. Kuzmin (2012). Their main point is concerned with distinguishing wolves from dogs. Their concern deals with taxonomy and domestication, biological questions for the most part. They are quite uncomfortable with the term dog being applied to late Pleistocene canids on the basis of tooth and skull morphology and dimensions. However, their concern is not ours because of the context wherein the Razboinich’ya dog was found. Regardless of whether it was a domesticated wolf to some degree or a full but runty wolf, it was important to the people who left its skull in the cave. Its relatively small size and old age hints that it was likely cared for for several years by the people who enshrined it in the cave.
There is a wide range of carbon-14 dates for the upper layer of the Razboinich’ya Cave fill. This clearly demonstrates the stratigraphic disturbance associated with carnivores in these southern Siberian caves and open sites - a theme we have repeatedly referred to in this book. The dates range fTom 670 ± 60 years (SOAN-2012); 7370 ± 40 years (SOAN-2015); 9760±70 (SOAN-2013); to 22 400±320 years (SOAN-2014).
The underlying second layer of red-brown loam, frozen in some places (mummified soft tissue is sometimes preserved), includes remains of cave hyena, brown bear, wolf, and various other large and small mammals. It is in this layer that the complete skull of an adult dog was discovered (Ovodov 1999). The preservation of the dog’s skull does not differ from that of other skulls found in the same layer, suggesting that it was not introduced at a later time in the Holocene when dogs are archaeologically well known. Wolf-like but smaller, its presence is more likely linked to ancient cult or shrine activity during the time this layer was forming. Such activity is additionally suggested by the presence of some burned bone and small fragments of charcoal found in this layer deep in the pitch-black cave.
In addition, a brown bear skull and wolf skulls were also found (see Varvarina Gora for possible ritual wolf burial). The nearest Paleolithic site, Kaminnaya Cave, is located 2 km from Razboinich’ya. The lack of perimortem carnivore damage to the dog and bear skulls allows us to infer that it was people, perhaps individuals from the Kaminnaya band, who placed the dog and bear skulls in Razboinich’ya Cave. Such placement of offerings in dark and dangerous places is not without strong analogy in the ethnographic present.
World History
