Burial of an Iron Age dog in Chirpan, Bulgaria.
A study of dog bones from several Iron Age sites in Bulgaria showed that people ate dog meat.
A study published at the end of December in International Journal of Osteoarchaeologyrevealed cut marks on dozens of canine skeletons found at archaeological sites in Bulgaria that suggest that the people ate dog meat 2,500 years ago.
As the leader of the investigation explained, Stella Nikolovait was not for lack of other options that dogs were consumed: “Dog meat was not a necessity consumed due to poverty, since these places are rich in cattle, which were the main source of protein.”
“Evidence shows that dog meat was associated with some tradition involving community banquets“, added the zooarchaeologist from the National Archaeological Institute with Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, speaking to .
This study proves that although the consumption of dog meat — a practice sometimes called cynophagia — is considered taboo in contemporary European societies, it was not always so.
Live Science mentions historical reports that ancient Greeks sometimes they ate dog meat. Archaeological analyzes of dog skeletons from Greece have already confirmed these theories.
“Uncivilized and warlike”
During the Iron Age (5th to 1st centuries BC), a cultural group known as the Thracians lived northeast of the Greeks in what is now Bulgaria.
The Greeks and Romans considered uncivilized and warlike Thraciansand, in the middle of the 1st century AD, Thrace became a province of the Roman Empire. Like the Greeks, it was said that the Thracians consumed dog meat.
To investigate the question of whether the Thracians really ate dogs, Nikolova examined skeletons and previously published data from 10 Iron Age archaeological sites spread across Bulgaria. He found that most dogs had medium-sized muzzles and medium to large withers heights, making them approximately the size of German shepherds.
But the large number of butcher marks on many of the bones revealed that the dogs They weren’t, at that time, man’s best friend.
When Stella Nikolova looked closely at dog bones and discovered that about 20% of them had butcher’s marks made by metal tools.
The cuts that Nikolova observed in the dogs followed approximately the same pattern as those observed in sheep and cattle at the site, suggesting that all animals were being carved in a similar way.
As the Thracians had many other animals more traditionally associated with meat consumption, such as pigs, birds, fish and wild mammals, Nikolova does not believe that the Thracians were eating dogs as a last resort.
