Every dog has its day: first glimpses into everyday life in Early Bronze Age Attica

Our knowledge of societies in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in Attica is almost non-existent on issues related to human-animal interactions. This constitutes the first study of three large faunal assemblages from southeast Attica that sheds light on a variety of previously unaddressed issues revolving around the notions of identity and social complexity. Zooarchaeological analyses reveal that the practice of cynophagy played an important role in Early Bronze Age Attica. Dogs were systematically reared and consumed as suggested by the abundance of their remains, the extensive butchery marks on them and other lines of evidence. Cynophagy occurred in Greece from as early as the Early Neolithic and there is evidence for it from various regions

but the case of Koropi in Attica is perhaps currently the most characteristic example of an extensive and organized adherence to this practice in Early Bronze Age Greece. Moreover, this study produced evidence to support that cynophagy was not practiced for purely subsistence purposes and discusses the possible sociopolitical ramifications of this practice in the currently available archaeological context of Early Bronze Age Attica.