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The issue of dog burials discovered at the archeological sites of the Przeworsk culture and, to a lesser degree, of the Wielbark culture has been taken up in the scientific literature since at least 1980s. It was described in the form of a catalogue (Andrałojć 1986) as well as repeatedly interpreted and discussed (e.g. Makiewicz 1987, 1989, 1994). A significant increase in the number of sources derived from the archeological digs of the past thirty years, the new questions that have arisen and, finally, our ability to carry out specialist interdisciplinary research at an unprecedented scale justify revisiting the issue, but this time in a much broader perspective. The significance of dogs for the community of the pre-Roman, Roman and the Migration Period (chronology by Eggers 1955) was discussed by M. Andrałojć and T. Makiewicz in the context of the cultural phenomenon of dog burials. It should be noted that this phenomenon went beyond the territories of the Przeworsk culture to also cover the vast areas of East-Central Europe Barbaricum. Despite a lively polemic between the two authors, their interpretations of the phenomenon were similar, indicating that the buried dogs served as foundation deposits. The questions about the collected source material that I would like to ask concern utilitarian issues, although they cannot be answered without investigating the symbolic context. These questions are about the importance of dogs for the economy and about the forms of dog breeding: was the breeding organized? were dogs the objects of long-distance trade? did the communities of the time have a preference for a specific morphological type of dogs? were dogs widely available and common? what kind of work were they used for? The catalogue of dog deposits compiled in the mid 1980s by M. Andrałojć includes the remains of at least two hundred and eighteen individuals extracted from forty-four sites of the Przeworsk culture and two sites of the Wielbark culture. The catalogue created for the purpose of this paper is based on the sources published after 1985 and, to a large extent, on the unpublished materials found during the research in the Archives of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Warsaw. I was able to gather data on the canine remains obtained from different categories of features (deposits under house floors, waste disposal pits, wells, etc.) unearthed at the sites from the pre-Roman, Roman and Migration Period. The selection of sources was driven by the desire to examine the dog population of that period in the most comprehensive way. The catalogue consists of forty-three sites of the Przeworsk culture, three sites of the Wielbark culture and two sites of the Tyniec group, where the remains of one hundred and twenty-four individuals were discovered in total. As for the geographical distribution of the Przeworsk and Wielbark culture sites from the pre-Roman period which have been unearthed during archeological field surveys, their increased density can be observed in Kujawy and Wielkopolska. The situation changed in the Roman period, when they could be found almost everywhere in the territory occupied by such groups. The most prominent concentrations of such sites are located in: a) Lower Silesia (in the northern part of Wroclaw Plain; b) Lesser Poland, near Cracow, where Proszowice Plateau, Vistula Lowland and Olkusz Upland meet; and c) Mazovia, in the area of Łowicz and Błonie Plain. Approximately 43% of the dog remains found on the settlements of the Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures were discovered in house corners under clay floors or in postholes. A much smaller number of deposits was found in other features of the settlements. Dog skeletons were discovered in well backfills, and in this case, there are several interpretations, depending on the nature of a deposit (complete or partial) and marks on bones. Cut marks and strong fragmentation are attributed to the consumption of dogs, which, in this particular case (due to the deposit location) was part of a ritual feast. On the other hand, the deposits of complete dogs buried in anatomical order and usually in the upper layers of wells are believed to be offerings deposited after the wells had gone out of use. Much less dog deposits were discovered under hearths, in bloomeries and in pottery kilns. However, the majority of dog deposits were placed in settlement pits. As for the remains discovered in this context, it can be assumed that these are simply the burials of animals which belonged to the settlement inhabitants and died of natural causes, and, therefore, they should not be interpreted as ritual offerings. At this point, one should also ask the question about the frequency of occurrence of dog remains at the sites of Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures, as this paper analyzes only the sites where such remains were discovered, which can be misleading as to the prevalence of dogs on the settlements in pre-Roman and Roman period, all the more so because the vast majority of them are not even mentioned here, since no such remains were recovered from such sites. On the other hand, the percentage of dog remains on the settlements where such finds were in fact discovered is very different and varies between 5% and even 25%. For example, the proportion of canine remains amounts to: 5% on the settlement in Magnice, Lower Silesia Province (Romanow 2011, 153), 5.21% in Polanowice, Kujawy-Pomerania Province (Sobociński 1989, 83), 10.35% on the settlement in Tądów Górny, Łódź Province (Makowiecki and Sobociński 1992, 199), 15% in Łojewo (Sobociński 1986, 173), and an unusually high 25% at the site in Konary, Kujawy-Pomerania Province (Sobociński 1987, 134). Based on the few settlements where dog remains were discovered, it is possible to calculate that the average proportion of dog bones in comparison with the remains of other animals is approx. 12%, which is relatively high if we compare it, for instance, with the sites in the borderland of the Roman Empire or Roman provinces dated to the same period. For instance, on the settlement in Tiel-Passewaaij in the Dutch province of Gelderland, which was inhabited from 350 BC to AD 350, the average occurrence of dog bones throughout all settlement phases is 0.3-4%, while the most frequent values at different phases vary between 1 and 2% (Groot 2008, 60-61). Dog remains were often buried with the deposits of other animals as well as clay or metal objects. These include large fragments of vessels or – less often – complete vessels. Typically, they are cups or bowls. Other equally popular associated finds are single bones (e.g. skulls) and complete skeletons of other domesticated animals (such as piglets, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and horses) and, to a lesser extent, wild animals (aurochs, deer, deer antlers, wild boar or fox), e.g. at the sites in: Lipianki, Pomerania Province (Ostasz 2012, 109-10); Magnice, Lower Silesia Province (Baron 2011, 112; Romanow 2011, 153); Polwica, Lower Silesia Province (Gralak 2012, 108); and Rogów, Kujawy-Pomerania Province (Bokiniec et al. 2000, 164). Researchers of the phenomenon of dog deposits paid particular attention to complete vessels as well as large vessel fragments deposited next to canine remains. These were interpreted as bowls (also created by breaking other large vessels) from which these particular animals were fed. They were usually deposited between dog legs (e.g. Strzelce in Kujawy-Pomerania Province or Łęczyca-Dzierzbiętów in Łódź Province) (Makiewicz 1987, 258), which might indeed suggest that they belonged to particular individuals, but this was not certain until the study on such vessel marks conducted in Germany provided solid arguments to support this thesis. On the skeletal cemetery discovered in Mainz, dated to I century AD, archeologists found a dog burial with a terra-rubra-type of a bowl vessel with bite marks on its edges, which were traced back to a canine individual (Grunewald 2009, 252). In addition, a dog burial almost identical to the one from Łęczyca-Dzierzbiętowo was excavated in the Gallo-Roman cemetery at the site Lyon-Vaise, dep. Rodan, with a very similar vessel deposited between the dog’s legs (Foucras 2014, 262). The canine individuals found in the deposits at the sites dated to the pre-Roman and Roman period differ in terms of age and height at the withers. It should be remembered, however, that the data being analyzed relate only to a smaller part of the remains, as not all of them have been tested. Nevertheless, the information that we already have is enough to hazard some conclusions, because it indicates that the remains under investigation belonged to individuals of all ages. There are three distinct age groups: the largest one includes adult individuals (aged 3-7), while old dogs (aged 8-10) and very old dogs (older than 11) account for 33% of all the dogs; the percentage of fetuses, pups and juveniles (younger than 3) is 31% in total. Unfortunately, there is no information on why these dogs died, and – until further specialist tests are done – conclusions can be inferred only based on the age structure. It can be assumed that the remains of old and very old dogs belong to individuals which died a natural death and were buried in the area of the settlements. Their skeletons have pathological lesions indicative of senile degeneration (heavy tooth wear or joint inflammation) and of injuries sustained when alive (healed limb bone fractures or marks of healed wounds of the skull). Such healed injuries suggest that there was a constant access to food on the settlements, thanks to which dogs could eat also when their motor skills were severely impaired and they could not work for people. As for juvenile and adult individuals, if their death was not caused by illness or wounds sustained during fights with other dogs (unfortunately, this type of research has not been conducted either), they must have been killed by a man. In this case, we are dealing with intentional sacrifices. The discovery of the remains of dogs which died from a blow to the head confirms such practices (e.g. Magnice, Lower Silesia Province, Romanow 2011, 153; Milžany, Chomutov District, Beneš and Nývltová Fišáková 2009, catalogue). Holes in skulls are also interpreted as the marks of cynophagia associated with eating the canine brain (Romanow 2011, 153). The height at the withers of the vast majority of individuals with measured bone length is grouped into two ranges: 54-58 cm and 59-63 cm. Only several individuals were smaller (less than 50 cm) or bigger (above 69 cm). Similar parameters were recorded for the dogs associated with the population of the Tyniec group. Particularly noteworthy are the remains of two dogs from the settlement in Jacewo, Kujawy-Pomerania Province, which have been identified as dachshund-shaped due to the shape and length of their leg bones (Sobociński 1976, 42-43). These are the only so far discovered Polish examples suggesting the existence of dwarf breeds as early as the Roman influence period. The information that can be obtained only from the archeological context of the finds is particularly useful in determining the cultural and symbolic role of dogs for the community of the younger pre-Roman and Roman period, however, it does not provide answers to many of the questions asked in the introduction. In order to explore the purely utilitarian nature of dog breeding, it is necessary to conduct large scale specialist zooarcheological research on the remains of these animals. A large part of the source material collected in the catalogue is comprised of dog skeletons recovered in recent years during open area excavations preceding the construction of roads. Researchers hope that such a significant increase in recently excavated bone remains means they are in a much better condition than the bones unearthed decades ago. Therefore, there are plans to carry out specialist and comparative studies on the remains recovered from the sites of various territorial groups of the Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures. This analysis will entail the radiological evaluation of pathological lesions on bones as well as the determination of gender and age at death, death causes and the dogs’ phenotypes. The study of the pathological lesions and their impact on the animals’ lives as well as the reconstruction of their morphology will provide answers to many questions, including the ones about the conditions in which dogs lived, to what kind of injuries they were exposed, whether sick and injured dogs were taken care of, and, finally, to what kind of jobs dogs were predisposed due to their body build, and whether jobs the dogs did left any marks in the form of degeneration or overdeveloped muscle attachments. After determining the cause of death of a large number of individuals, it will be possible to say how often dogs were actually killed to become ritual offerings and in how many cases the cause of death was completely natural. Finally, analyzing the phenotype of animals dated to different regional groups of the Przeworsk culture will provide a reliable springboard for deliberations on preferences for specific breeds and on the possible existence of basic breeds, and thus – on the degree of human involvement in dog breeding.