How to bury
A Pet
Dog Burials 101
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hey I'm David and welcome to ethno
Scientology many of us have lost pets
and what happens it's devastating but
we're not alone because our ancestors
obviously lost pets too what we're
looking at here is a dog that died over
25 thousand years ago we'll check the
carbon dates later however this dog died
it was somebody's best friend
if not son like my dog is and it died
and they were devastated and they buried
it in the ground for perpetuity just
like you and I would hey I'm David and
welcome back to ethnos i Knology also
come and go boy this is strider you've
probably seen him before
alright now you can go away go anyway
and we're back so this is actually what
archaeologists wear and one of my PPE
personal protective equipment if I'm on
a site I want to be wearing something
that protects me and protects the rest
of my crew and the construction crew
that we're working with what we have
here though is a domestic dog burial and
if you see this we have a dog buried
right here there's some artifacts
scattered in and if you see this ring
around that that's ochre to us as
archaeologists that tells us that this
burial is cultural we know much as a
burial and not just a happenstance death
because of two reasons one it's in a
flexed position it was intentionally
placed there that way and the other
reason is we can see that there's
culture in this burial culture is just
human behavior across time right and we
pass this on it's what keeps us alive we
pass on culture to the next generation
teaching them at a hunt how to fish how
to collect and how to forage teach our
families and we practice a culture of
burials and death the other humans first
of all we bury our dead no other animal
does that you can argue that gorillas
and chimpanzees mourn for their dead and
elephants might actually bury their dead
too but no other animal specifically
culturally varies another individual of
its species to preserve it for say the
afterlife or for that the next life
humans don't really do this for any
other animal
other than dogs we care for these
creatures so much so that we want to
bury them so that we preserve them and
they can come with us to the afterlife
as well so you can see here that this
burial let's say this is an ancient
France where we find a lot of ancient
dogs Paleolithic humans in Eurasia would
have been burying their animals just
like this so first we have the dog we
can see his remains here okay but what
we also have our three projectile points
placed here facing west now first of all
you should just notice that this
projectile points buried in there
because that says something but the fact
that we can use observational skills
instead of this are facing west
probably means that this was some kind
of ritual in which it was going towards
the Setting Sun and it was being buried
going to the beyond you know so we also
have here if you can't see it and I'm
gonna pull that out with a color
correction right now all right
and we're back so here we go this is
called ochre and you might be aware of
ochre as a pigment I have some of my
tattoo here actually and this is a
pigment that's used by people worldwide
in prehistory and it's found that a lot
of burials and it's actually what's used
to bake those hand sprays all over the
world including in Cueva de las manos
which you'll see here so normally when
an archaeological excavation happens you
do this by finding it out of luck you do
this by finding it up from a backhoe
excavation you find it by doing your
shovel test you're never gonna find a
burial this awesome in the ground right
it's it did swear and this is a coyote
that died like probably a year ago less
it's preserved and when you find this
burial in in an actual context later on
it might be in a cave that might be
underground either way it's gonna be a
mess there's gonna be bones missing
you're not even be able to tell it's a
dog we are really fortunate to have this
dog here
the oldest dog burial comes from bond
over castle Germany and it's about
fourteen thousand years old it's a puppy
that was buried with two humans and it
was buried intentionally what's also
interesting about this puppy is that
earlier in its life it had canine
distemper and we can tell that by
analyzing its bones and the canine
distemper affected the body earlier
healed which means it was fed and cared
for by humans which is very interesting
because why would we waste time feeding
an animal when we could just feed
ourselves that shows that we actually
had care for this animal and we had a
culture that told us that dogs for okay
too
however later died or it was sacrificed
eventually to live with the dead humans
and it was varied intentionally in place
there so that they could probably live
with the human in the afterlife that's
pretty badass
Harry yeah I would say one of the most
interesting dog burials that I have seen
are you know just come across in
research is the one and I'm allaha
Israel as an etouffee and woman about
middle aged that was buried with a puppy
and you can see her and I'll put the
picture up here she's buried and you can
see that her hand is placed on a puppy
the puppy probably didn't die at that
age or in ordered the puppy died and the
human was sacrificed must be real the
puppy was probably sacrificed to live
with the human that says something
because that means that the humans
believed that they were going somewhere
in which that puppy should come with
them so they killed the puppy to live
with them
that's pretty damn cool we find human
burials often but we don't really bury
other animals so when we come across two
dog burials this tells us something
super interesting about our hit species
in the past and our ancestors because we
put so much care and thought into into
preserving these animals for the
afterlife and for perpetuity that we can
also take these studies that we find
with the dogs and apply them to humans
and sometimes these burial practices are
similar if not the same and we can't
necessarily take a time machine and go
see what it was like to live with my dog
ten thousand years ago in the Ukraine
however if we find a dog burial in the
Ukraine and we study it and collect all
the science the VAT data we came out of
there we can finally tell ourselves
something interesting about what
happened and we
reconstruct that past life of that
person who lived 10,000 years ago in the
Ukraine sir dogs have been around for at
least at least 15,000 if not 30,000
years that's a long time in that time
we've been burying dogs probably not as
early on as around 30,000 years but
later on as the dogs and humans that are
forming a relationship we started to
bury them and this can tell us all sorts
of things about human culture human
thought and human behavior which is what
archeology is it's the study of human
behavior through time it's not just
looting tombs it's not about mummies
it's about the behavior that we had so
what I think is most interesting is that
when your dog dies hopefully never
you're gonna have to cremate it or
you're gonna have to bury it so think
about it
whether you think your dog is going to
an afterlife whether your dog is just
gone whether their dog is reincarnated
into something else
when your dog eventually passes remember
that dogs have been passing away for
thirty thousand years and people have
been dealing with the same that we
are it's really hard and it sucks but
what we can do is look at this and we
can say that somebody 15,000 years ago
shed tears in this very spot probably
sobbed played music had some kind of
ritual and put their dog to rest and we
are looking at it right now but we see
this dog now we're collecting data from
it and we are adding to the larger human
story about what happened in the past
and I think that is what is most badass
about anthropology
[Music]
hey I'm David and welcome to ethno
Scientology many of us have lost pets
and what happens it's devastating really
really kicks you in the balls it's not
it's not it's not great that's not a
good look it's just like really ruins
you're saying
![how to bury a fish [pet]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/xdcD9eq-hrU/mqdefault.jpg)
