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The dog, who is about 8,400 years old, lies snuggled in a well. According to the Blekinge Museum, it is one of the oldest dog funeral finds in the country.
The dog will only be picked up later this week and Carl Persson, who is the project manager at the excavation site in Sölvesborg, is a bit nervous.
“Scientifically, it is not important to mention everything, but it is very important that people can see and understand it,” he tells TT.
The fact that the dog was buried, he thinks, makes you feel closer to the people who once lived in the place, the Stone Age hunters.
Covered in mud
The area is right next to the beach. The reason it has been preserved is that the sea level rose very rapidly 8,200 years ago and then everything was covered in mud.
So far, no parts of the human skeleton have been found here, probably because the soil is so acidic in much of the area that the bones break, says osteologist Ola Magnell. But in the part of the area where the dog was found, conditions are better.
He sees that the dog has been buried as a sign that Stone Age hunters had a close relationship with certain dogs. But this did not apply to all: some dog bones found from this time have traces that indicate that the dogs were also eaten by humans.
Archaeologists have found dog graves before, but what is unusual about this is the location next to people’s residential buildings in an area where the remains of 51 house structures have been found.
Axes and knives
Gifts have also been found in some dog graves, such as axes and knives. Along with the Stone Age dog in Sölvesborg there are small pieces of flint that will now be analyzed. They could be derived from a knife or an ax.
– There are other examples from this era where some dogs receive the same grave gifts as humans. No dog needs an ax, but he’s man’s best friend, so clearly he should get it, says Carl Persson.
