Posted by Santellana ( of “Tarot by Santellana”, one of the Sideshow Performers at the Museum of The Weird )
Man’s best,…meal?! Wow, this actually is a MAN-BITES-DOG story!
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Man’s best friend has long provided protection and companionship. But researchers now believe that 10,000 years ago, dogs were not only our loyal friends, but sometimes also our meals.
While this may not come as a shock to people in Korea where dog is still eaten to this day, the scientists found a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated canine in the Americas.
From this, they have concluded that the animals were bred to be eaten as well as serving as hunting dogs and even pets. However, it remains unknown whether the dogs were eaten out of necessity.
Samuel Belknap III, a University of Maine graduate student, came across the fragment while analysing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in south-west Texas in the 1970s.
A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog – not a wolf, coyote or fox, Mr Belknap said. The fragment was found deep inside a pile of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown colour that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1348546/Bone-fragment-confirms-dogs-bred-food-9-400-years-ago.html#ixzz1BVmUrbRu