Could a life lived with animals be in our DNA? We’ve evolved from hunter-gathers, into farmers looking out onto pasture, cornfield, hedgerow and wildwood beyond. Today the wildwood has retreated, and for most of us even farms too. We live in an increasingly artificial environment, and few of us live off the land.
Yet we have many questions about our relationship with animals. We view this question with a modern mindset. What can the lives of our ancestors tell us? The lives of hunters, farmers, shepherds (or shepherdesses), with the cycle of life and death at their door? We revisit the smouldering charcoal of the cremation pyre seen in Wildwood, Tree Rings, Climate and Environment. Amongst the charcoal were found the cremated remains of a teenage boy, and animals…..
From the edge of the woodland we see four people lay the body of a young person upon a tall stack of oakwood. From a distance, for we can’t see for sure, he looks like a teenage boy. He’s well built with strong shoulders, lain on his left side, one hand draped over his chest. Around him are the bodies of a roe deer, a pig, and a large joint of meat. A crowd of onlookers stand around as one person leans forwards and sets light to a layer of birchwood, which flares up quickly, burning hot underneath the weight of the oakwood above.
A few years later, we see a similar scene. Only, this time four people lift up the body of a woman and place her on a cremation pyre. With her, they place the body of a dog.
For more on a life lived with animals, read the full post in Animals & Ancestors: Bones From the Pyre on Explore the Past.
Featured image by Enguerran Urban on Unsplash.com