Preface
Introduction to buried dog remains unearthed from the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter site
2015 Volume 123 Issue 2 Pages 71-72
Details
2015 Volume 123 Issue 2 Pages 71-72
The following four papers in this issue present results of the research on the two dog burials in the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter site, Ehime Prefecture, long considered the oldest dog burial samples in Japan. Unfortunately, after the dog bones were first excavated in 1962 (Esaka et al., 1967, 1969), their whereabouts became unknown, until they were finally rediscovered in March 2011 in a far corner of an archaeological storeroom in Keio University (Sato et al., 2015).
Based on radiocarbon dates, the dog bones are somewhat more recent than originally thought. It became clear that they dated between the latter part of the Initial Jomon and the beginning of the Early Jomon period (c. 7400–7200 cal BP). Nonetheless, these remains are still the oldest in Japan. The authors conducted academic and general research on these valuable bones and obtained a great deal of information about the age (Gakuhari et al., 2015), morphological characteristics (Komiya et al., 2015), lineage (Masuda and Sato, 2015), and diet of the dogs (Gakuhari et al., 2015).
Early domesticated dogs represent a variety of lineages, characteristics, uses, and methods of rearing. To research these features from excavated bones, an interdisciplinary collaborative research on areas including morphology, chronology, genetics, and ossification is required. However, limited attempts at such collaborative research have been undertaken in Japan. Under the circumstances, the research by the authors represents an especially innovative example in its comprehensiveness. It is hoped that this research on the oldest dog burials in Japan stimulates and provides impetus to further investigate prehistoric domestic dogs on the Japanese islands.
The morphological characteristics of the dog burial remains excavated from the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter site are presented in detail in the paper by Komiya et al. in this volume. In addition, the following website presents Quick Time VR images of both crania as well as the main morphological characteristics of these remains (Figure 1): http://www.flet.keio.ac.jp/~sato/DogBurials_eng It is hoped that readers will find browsing this site useful.
Pictures taken from the website, http://www.flet.keio.ac.jp/~sato/DogBurials_eng
In publishing the results of this research, particular mention must be made of the achievements of Dr. Teruya Esaka, who led the excavation at the Kamikuroiwa Rock Shelter site, and Professor Yoshito Abe, who invested great effort over many years, searching for the dog bones. Sadly, Professor Abe passed away on 1 January 2013, and Dr. Esaka passed away on 8 February 2015. It is a pity they did not live to see the four papers presented here, but I would like to mention their contribution and pray for their spiritual repose.
