Near Eastc. 2000 BC · Tavşanlı Höyük, Kütahya province, Turkey
4,000-year-old dog paw prints found in burnt Bronze Age house in Turkey
Researchers think a dog walked across the brick while its clay was still wet, before it went into a house at Tavşanlı Höyük that later burned down.
In brief 3 key points
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- Dog paw prints survive on a 4,000-year-old mudbrick
- They record an ordinary moment of animal life in Bronze Age Anatolia
- Turkey's culture ministry announced the find without a scientific paper
Archaeologists in western Turkey have found dog paw prints pressed into a mudbrick about 4,000 years ago. The brick came from the ruins of a Bronze Age house at Tavşanlı Höyük, in Kütahya province. The house had been destroyed by fire.
The researchers think a dog walked across the brick while its clay was still wet. That happened before the brick was used in the building. The marks then survived the fire and almost four millennia underground.
Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, announced the find on 26 October. The excavation is led by Professor Erkan Fidan of Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University.
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Pressed into wet clay before the house was built
The brick turned up among the collapsed remains of the burnt building. Fire destroyed the house, but the impressions stayed intact. The archaeologists identified them as the traces of a dog's paws.
The sequence the team describes is simple. A dog stepped on a damp brick. The brick was later laid in a house wall. The house burned, and its remains lay buried until the current excavations reached them.
Soft clay takes impressions easily, so a passing animal could leave clear marks on a brick left out to dry. Once the clay hardened, those marks became a permanent part of the wall.
An accidental record of everyday life
According to the announcement, as reported by HeritageDaily, the prints suggest that dogs moved around the settlement's buildings and building materials. They give an unusual view of how people and animals lived side by side in Bronze Age Anatolia, the Asian part of modern Turkey.
Most finds from ancient sites are things people made on purpose, such as pottery and tools. The paw prints are an unintended record of an animal walking through its surroundings. Everyday activity of this kind usually leaves little trace for archaeologists to find.
Tavşanlı Höyük is one of the largest Bronze Age settlements in western Anatolia. A höyük is a mound that builds up from the remains of a settlement lived in over a long period. The site has drawn archaeologists because of its size and the evidence it holds of the communities that lived there thousands of years ago.
Some details are still missing. The report did not say how many prints the brick carries, how large the dog was, or which phase of the Bronze Age the house belongs to. The age of about 4,000 years is given as a round figure.
The find was made public through the ministry, and no scientific publication on it has been cited. Excavations at Tavşanlı Höyük are continuing under Fidan's direction.
Sources (1)
Official announcementfrom Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University and Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Edited by Guiseppe Weijermars
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