Signs of ‘feeding’ ritual at dingo burial site shed new light on bond between First Nations people and canines | Archaeology

The discovery of a millennium-old dingo burial site in western New South Wales, including evidence of a previously undocumented “feeding” ritual, has shed new light on the long-standing relationship between dogs and First Nations people.

The dingo was buried along the Baaka or Darling River in Kinchega national park near the Menindee Lakes.

Radiocarbon dating indicates that the animal was buried in a midden between 916 and 963 years ago; The Barkindji people then turned to this by adding river mussel shells for about 500 years.

Scientists say that the practice of “feeding” the area with shells has never been observed archaeologically anywhere in the world before.

“Barkindji Elders suggest that continued additions to the Kinchega midden may have established a ‘feeding’ ritual that was sustained over multiple generations,” the researchers write. Australian Archeology.

The leader of the project is Dr Dye, an archaeologist at the Australian Museum and lecturer at the University of Sydney. Amy Way said Aboriginal dingo burial sites had been discovered before but had not been analyzed in context.

“What was really important about this study was that we showed that the midden was created during burial, so these two processes occurred together as a way of burying the dingo in that landscape.”

The dingo, a living male estimated to be four to seven years old, had “rib fractures and a broken leg, injuries typical of hunting with kangaroos,” Way said. “The fact that it survived these injuries and was restored to health with treatment shows how much society valued that animal at that time.”

The body was first identified in 2000 by Barkindji’s old Badger Uncle Bates and a National Parks and Wildlife Service archaeologist, after the site was uncovered by roadworks. A rescue excavation took place in September 2023 to recover the remains of the dingo, whose skull was lost in floods in 2021.

Barkindji superintendent David Doyle, who was involved in the excavation, described the practice of constantly adding to the shell midden as “a way of maintaining connection and also respecting the ancestors”.

Dingoes “were a companion animal to colonization,” Doyle said. “Actually, they don’t even exist here in our country; they were hunted to regional extinction.

“Some of our Barkindji people still have the dingo as a totem. Although it is not in our area now, it is still important.”

Although native dingo cemeteries have been documented before, research funded by the Australian Museum Foundation showed that the practice had spread further north and west across the Baaka system than previously documented.

Dr. D., a conservation biologist at the University of New South Wales who was not involved in the research. Kylie Cairns said the excavations showed “how important some dingoes were to First Nations people, they were involved in their daily lives and were kept as companions.”

He said the vast majority of dingoes live in the wild. “Dingos are really important ecologically and culturally in Australia and I think how dingoes are currently being treated in legislation and other legislation. [the] The ground…does not reflect that.

“What many Australians don’t realize is that we are actively killing dingoes in national parks.

“We really need to have a discussion about how we manage dingoes in the wild, how we protect livestock and also make sure we value them for their cultural value and also their ecological value,” he said.

His research showed that by 2023, more than half of dingoes in Australia will be genetically pure. published this weekshowed that there are eight genetically distinct dingo populations.