Archaeologists have found a grave site in Verona, Italy, where humans were buried along with pets like dogs and horses, over 2,000 years ago.
Knewz.com has learned that the human and animal remains discovered at the site date back to somewhere between the third to first Century B.C.E.
The Seminario Vescovile site in Verona contains the remains of 161 people, 16 of whom were buried with animal remains.
While archaeologists found pigs, chickens, and cows, buried next to some of the graves, four people were found buried alongside dog and horse remains.
Although the remains of livestock in the graves could indicate that they were part of food offerings, neither dogs nor horses were a part of the Italian diet at the time.
This led the archaeologists to believe that the four particular people were buried at the Seminario Vescovile site along with their pets or animals that had significant importance in their lives.
The archaeologists documented their findings in a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, entitled "Until Death Do Us Part". A multidisciplinary study on human-Animal co-burials from the Late Iron Age necropolis of Seminario Vescovile in Verona (Northern Italy, 3rd-1st c. BCE).
"This context, culturally attributed to the Cenomane culture, features 161 inhumations, of which only 16 included animal remains in the form of full skeletons, isolated skeletal parts, or food offerings," the paper mentioned.
"Of these, four are of particular interest as they contain either horses (Equus caballus) or dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)–animals that did not play a dietary role. Analyses show no demographic, dietary, funerary, or genetic relatedness between individuals buried with animals."
Simply put, the four people who were buried with their pets do not come from the same family. This suggests that there are many possible reasons why these people were buried with their dogs and horses, ranging from religious symbolism and ritualistic sacrifice to animal companionship.
The paper also noted that dogs and horses have been buried alongside humans throughout history, although the significance of their burial varies from culture to culture. The paper cited the example of the Bonn-Oberkassel dog, one of the earliest instances of animals being buried with their (supposed) masters.
"Turning to dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), their appearance in human burials is archaeologically documented from at least the late Paleolithic, the earliest evidence of this custom being that of Born-Oberkassel (Germany, 12290–12050 cal. BC)," the paper wrote.
"The appearance of dogs in funerary contexts, associated with human graves or not, presents a remarkable geographic distribution, with finds identified in Eurasia and the Americas and a chronological extension spanning from the Paleolithic to contemporary times."
The burial of horses alongside horses is also quite common, as the paper pointed out: "While this is likely driven by heterogeneous (and difficult to ascertain) cultural factors, it nonetheless reflects the widespread social and economic centrality of this animal in human communities both past and present."
However, it is worth noting that the archaeologists have also theorized that these animals may have been sacrificed in a ritual for the burial of humans, given their significance in Celtic cultures.
"This is additionally supported by imagery of the goddess Epona, whose name derives from the Celtic word for horse and whose iconography is regularly characterized by the death of one or more of these animals," the paper noted.
"A divinity largely worshipped among Gallo-Romans, Epona held a complex symbolism linked to fertility and protection of the individual after death. An association between the horse remains at [the Seminario Vescovile site] and the role of Epona as a guide who accompanies newly deceased souls to the afterlife is therefore an interesting possibility."
The same goes for the dog remains found at the site, about which the archaeologists wrote:
"In particular, it is tempting to cautiously postulate an association between the deposition of this animal and their association to the underworld. A link between dogs and the afterlife can be found throughout time and space, with examples from ancient Egypt, Scandinavia, classical, and Gallo-Roman culture."