Life was short and sometimes brutal for many of the dogs of China's Shang Dynasty. New research shows that most of the canines sacrificed during this Bronze Age were just puppies, with some of them buried alive.The Shang Dynasty ruled China's Yellow River Valley between 1600 B.C. and 1046 B.C
Life was short and sometimes brutal for many of the dogs of China's Shang Dynasty. New research shows that most of the canines sacrificed during this Bronze Age were just puppies, with some of them buried alive.
"Puppies, that sounds horrible," Campbell told Live Science."Why would you sacrifice a cute little puppy? On the other hand, if it's not your puppy and if you're living in a society where you don't have the same assumptions of dogs and cuteness … it's a cheaper investment in the animal. You don't have to raise it yourself."
Pigs were also commonly sacrificed by the ancient Chinese, Campbell said. But over the course of the Bronze Age, he said, sheep, goats and cattle became more commonly sacrificed, perhaps because increasing trade ties with western Eurasia brought these animals to China's central plains. Inscriptions on oracle bones suggest that dogs continued to be sacrificed, particularly to the gods of the sky.
Almost humanInstead, the dogs may have been stand-ins for human sacrifices, Campbell said. Shang Dynasty elites often sent concubines and slaves to their deaths, burying their bodies in the tombs of the rich and powerful. Many of these sacrifices were probably war prisoners, Campbell said. Their bones suggest that the sacrifices often came from elsewhere and had been poorly treated, sometimes for years, before being executed.
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