Radiocarbon dating of one human and two dog burials from the Kamikuroiwa rock shelter site, Ehime Prefecture

Abstract

Two complete dog skeletons were recovered during archeological excavations from 1961 to 1970 at the Kamikuroiwa rock shelter, a site that yielded a series of cultural entities from the Late Pleistocene, Incipient Jomon, and Early Jomon periods. Since two dogs were buried close to human skeletons, it was thought that these dogs had been buried by Jomon people, and hence provided the oldest direct evidence of Canis domestication in Japan. However, the stratigraphic information and archeological contexts of these dog skeletons are incomplete due to the lack of detailed excavation reports and technical limitations of excavations at this site. Because the date of the dog burials has not been fully discussed in the context of modern chronology or recent discussions on Canis domestication, we directly measured radiocarbon ages and stable isotope analysis on two dog burials and one set of human remains from the Kamikuroiwa rock shelter. These data are important for reconstructing the relationship between humans and dogs in the Jomon period. Our results show that the human thought to have been buried with the dogs was assigned to the middle Initial Jomon period (8977-8725 calBP), whereas, on the other hand, dates for the dog burials are very close to each other and were assigned to the latest Initial Jomon or the initial Early Jomon periods (7414-7273 calBP). Although these results are not consistent with previous archeological interpretations for this site, they remain important because these two dog burials are among the oldest evidence of Canis domestication in East Asia.

Morphological characteristics of buried dog remains excavated from the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter site, Ehime Prefecture, Japan

“…Komiya (1995aKomiya ( , b, 1999Komiya ( , 2002Komiya ( , 2008, Komiya and Tomura (1997), Shigehara (1986), and Shigehara and Onodera (1984). (Gakuhari et al, 2015). These dates correspond to a time period from the end of the Initial Jomon period to the beginning of the Early Jomon period.…”

“…Recently we rediscovered them in a laboratory repository at Keio University, approximately 50 years after their discovery at the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter site . Direct 14 C dating of the dog remains gave c. 7400-7200 calBP (Gakuhari et al, 2015), indicating that these are the oldest buried dog remains discovered to date in the Japanese archipelago.…”

Rediscovery of the oldest dog burial remains in Japan

“…For both 'dog, large' and 'dog, small,' the carbon date ranged between c. 7400 and 7300 cal BP, indicating that the bones probably date from the end of the Initial to the beginning of the Early Jomon periods (Gakuhari et al, 2015). This makes them, of course, the oldest buried dog bones recovered on the Japanese archipelago, but it would date the remains later than previously thought as the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter dog burials are assumed to date back to the middle of the Initial Jomon period.…”

“…Three of the authors, Sato, Ando, and Abe, searched far and wide for them, and on 7 March 2011, discovered what appeared to be the bones of two dog skeletons in an archaeological storeroom on Keio University's Mita campus. Other articles in this journal report on the age of these bones, their morphological characteristics , as well as analyses of DNA (Masuda and Sato, 2015) and the results of radiocarbon dating (Gakuhari et al, 2015). In this article, the authors will go back to the conditions in which the dog bones were originally excavated from the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter, and explain why they are convinced they have rediscovered those remains.…”

Introduction to buried dog remains unearthed from the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter site

“…Nonetheless, these remains are still the oldest in Japan. The authors conducted academic and general research on these valuable bones and obtained a great deal of information about the age (Gakuhari et al, 2015), morphological characteristics , lineage (Masuda and Sato, 2015), and diet of the dogs (Gakuhari et al, 2015).…”