2024’s top finds – the dog in the drain

Over the past two decades, thousands of people have visited the Ness of Brodgar excavation, many of them accompanied by their canine companions. So perhaps not much has changed since the heyday of the complex, around 3100BC.

The archaeological evidence points at the Ness being a meeting place — a site where people from Orkney, and beyond, gathered periodically. And from the animal remains on site we know some of these Neolithic visitors were accompanied by dogs.

We’re no strangers to strange deposits. But this summer, in a corner of Structure Twelve, a few eyebrows were raised when excavation revealed the partial remains of a puppy in a drain!

The substantial drain was a later addition to Structure Twelve, inserted after its primary north-western entrance was deliberately blocked to create a sub-oval cell. It was discovered at the start of the 2024 season and also found to contain pottery, bird and animal bone.

Examination by UHI Archaeology Institute zooarchaeologist Professor Ingrid Mainland confirmed the dog was around six months old (definitely less than nine months old) at death and belonged to a small, terrier-sized “breed”.

The Ness of Brodgar canine bone assemblage is tiny compared to the quantity of domestic livestock remains found on site – something only to be expected as the latter represents the remnants of food consumption.

Although the scant evidence may be due to the poor bone preservation on site, dogs would not have been present in anything like the same number as cattle and perhaps only for short periods of time — when people congregated at the Ness.

We have found canine remains before, but these have just been dispersed fragments from various contexts across the site. In contrast, the Structure Twelve skeleton bore the hallmarks of a more structured, deliberate deposit.

We hope radiocarbon dating will provide a date for the deposition of the puppy but its position in the drain means it must post-date the remodelling of Twelve, around 2900BC, but pre-date the building going out of use around 2700BC.

Excavation evidence suggests that Structure Twelve was deliberately demolished at the end of its life, a final feast marking its decommissioning. As part of this, artefacts, interpreted as closing deposits, were placed in its northern annexe, including the three fragments of a beautifully decorated “Brodgar Butterfly” stone slab.

Then the remains of the building were completely buried in huge quantities of midden.

Given the volume of the overlying midden, it is highly unlikely the presence of the dog was the result of later, natural or accidental intrusion. The presence of other animal and bird bone suggests a deliberate deposit – perhaps another that represents the abandonment of the building.

Why a dog? That we’ll probably never know. Did it represent a guardian of the threshold? Or did it represent, or was connected to,  the people who decided Twelve’s time had come to an end?

At Skara Brae dogs lived among the villagers and the analysis of their coprolites suggests they were fed scraps — predominantly sheep — but were also eating Orkney voles.

Like their modern counterparts, Neolithic dogs probably had multiple roles, including hunting and herding. Although the consumed vole remains could suggest pest control, it should be remembered that vole bone was also found in human waste from Skara Brae, suggesting the rodents were a food source.

Evidence from Europe also suggests dogs were on the menu, which may go some way to explaining the context in which some of the Orcadian canine remains were found.

At the Ness it is clear some were simply consigned to the midden dump.

Dog remains are also known at other Neolithic sites in Orkney. In 1973/74, during the partial excavation at the Stones of Stenness, the ditch produced canine remains.

The bones had been deposited in the surrounding ditch shortly after it was dug. They included the leg bones of two dogs – although the size of one prompted the suggestion it belonged to a wolf!

Perhaps the best-known canine deposit came from the Cuween Hill chambered cairn, outside the village of Finstown, on the Orkney Mainland.

In July 1901, large quantities of animal bone – and dog teeth – were found in the upper fill of the Neolithic chamber while the lower 30cm, just above the floor, were human and dog remains, including 24 canine skulls.

The discovery led to the suggestion that dogs were a totem animal to the people who constructed, and used, the Cuween chamber around 3100BC.

Radiocarbon dating, however, has since shown that four of the skulls dated to around 2500BC, meaning they were placed in the chamber many centuries after its construction.

These dates fit a pattern noted across Orkney and which saw already ancient chambered cairns increasingly used for the deposition of animal remains at the cusp of the Bronze Age.

In 2019, forensic examination of one of the Cuween skulls suggested it belonged to a dog the size of a large collie and which was between two and three years old when it died.

Although these canine examples were reasonably large – at the Stones of Stenness, very large! –the Structure Twelve puppy was not. We hope DNA analysis during our ongoing post-excavation phase might shed some more light on the little animal.