A dog appears to cradle its food bowl in this image used for the cover of the Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology. The best example I have uncovered comes from Ban Non Wat, a Bronze Age site in Thailand where we uncovered 700 human graves dating back 3000 years. On this occasion, we uncovered a complete pot, and then the distinctive contour of bone, a skull. Usually, we found dogs buried with a human, but once we uncovered the complete grave, we found that the dog was the only occupant. The Chinese did the same 3000 years ago, along with the charioteers and the chariots they hauled into battle.

Source: Otago Daily Times February 27, 2026 20:32 UTC