The assumption that material and scientific progress is always indicative of civilised behaviour has received a further kicking as a result of a research article just published.

Many graves dating from more than fifteen thousand years ago have been excavated at Uyun al-Hammam in the Levant and of particular interest was the fact that red foxes were found to have been placed in a number of the graves. This isn’t something that is unique (although it’s the earliest instance in the Near East) but a particularly intriguing aspect was the fact that some of the ones found at Uyun al-Hammam weren’t disarticulated or fragmented or burnt or showing signs of butchery marks or other evidence of being treated in a manner similar to other prey animals. 

In the words of the authors: 

It is clear that these fox remains are not related to consumption or exploitation of some secondary product, such as a pelt….. We suggest that, rather than the fox being treated as a ‘grave good’ (e.g., personal adornment) it had a special relationship (i.e., companion) to the humans in these graves. Just as the skull of Burial B was removed during a later disturbance of this grave, and a skull placed into Grave VIII, the fox skull was removed from Grave VIII and re-buried with an individual in Grave I. It is possible that the link between fox and human was such that when the human died the fox was killed and buried alongside. Later, when the graves were re-opened, these links were remembered and bones moved so that the dead person would continue to have the fox with him or her in the afterlife… 

At Uyun al-Hammam it seems the fox was viewed and treated as ideologically different from other animals. Like the humans, the fox was buried complete, associated with red ochre, and had its head removed and moved elsewhere (with another burial)…

Considering that the earliest domestic dogs in the Near East are small it is not much of a stretch to think that similarly-sized foxes could have been considered as potential domesticates to prehistoric people… Although canid remains, including those of wolf, have been found in other contexts at the site, none are complete, well-preserved, articulated, or come from other discrete burial contexts… Studies have shown that foxes are easy to tame, and share many sensory and other features with wolves, which might make them amenable to domestication. They are smaller and easier to control – although more skittish and timid – than the wolf. It seems likely that foxes could have shared a similar type of relationship with humans as wolves did, even if they were never truly domesticated. Although we may never be able to reconstruct the nature of the relationships between humans and early domesticated dogs (were they pets or work animals, or both?), their inclusion in burials reveals ties of emotional consequence. It is possible that the burial of a fox with a human might have had the same social, ideological or symbolic significance as that of a human with a dog. 

Is seeing foxes as special creatures, like dogs (which is of course exactly what they are), even perhaps to the extent of aspiring to have them as companions in the afterlife, a serviceable yardstick for measuring people’s characters? Who knows? But soon Parliament is going to vote on whether to make it easier for morally challenged thugs to hunt them down. With dogs. For pleasure.