Man’s Other Best Friend: Did Patagonian Hunters Domesticate an Extinct Fox?

Was Man’s Best Friend a fox? For hunter gatherers in Patagonia 1,500 years ago, that may well turn out to be true. A team of archaeologists excavating the intriguing Cañada Seca site in Argentina have found what looks like a domesticated fox living with humans 1,500 years ago.

The fox is from a recently extinct species known as Dusicyon avus, which used to roam the vast open stretches of Patagonia until it was wiped out by the introduction of domestic canids to South America. But the species only naturally occurred much further south, or on the Atlantic coast to the east. How did it end up at Cañada Seca?

Domesticated and taken north by Patagonian humans? Dusicyon avus (shaded region) is only known to have existed far to the south of Cañada Seca (marked with a star) (Royal Society Open Science)

The findings, published in Royal Society Open Science, offer up an unexpected possibility. Before they domesticated dogs, did these hunter gatherers instead domesticate a fox to live alongside them?

Man’s First Friend

The Cañada Seca site is in the far north of the Patagonia region, about 130 miles (210 km) from Mendoza in Argentina. Discovered by accident in 1991, the site appears to contain multiple layers of burials, although damage caused by initial excavations has resulted in the loss of much contextual evidence.

A total of 3,470 human bones have been recovered from the site. These bones come from at least 24 individuals, including three infants, one child, two adolescents and 18 adults. These hunter gatherers lived and died in the region some 1,500 years ago, reports Archaeology News.

The bones had previously been identified as a Lycalopex, but are now confirmed to be an extinct Patagonian fox, which appears to have been domesticated (Royal Society Open Science)

However, something new was found during a recent excavation. The team noticed the bones of a fox buried alongside one of the human skeletons. The fox had been previously identified as part of the Lycalopex genus, which includes several extant South American foxes. However, when the team looked closer they discovered something very different: the animal was in fact the extinct Dusicyon avus.

The researchers looked in more detail at the bones, extracting the fox’s nitrogen and carbon isotopes and analyzing them. Such an analysis allowed the team to build up a picture of the fox’s diet, and the results were intriguing. The isotopes revealed that this normally carnivorous fox had consumed a largely plant-based diet, one which was nearly identical to the human buried alongside it.

This would not be expected from a wild fox, and points to a wholly different conclusion. The fox appeared to share meals with the human hunter gatherers who lived in the region, either as a domesticated pet or through scavenging scraps. Either way, the fox looks to have been a part of a human group.

This makes sense given the nomadic lifestyle of the humans in Patagonia at the time. The fox could act as a guard or raise the alarm in an emergency, or could have been an animal companion. The positioning of the fox’s skeleton alongside the human certainly suggests the latter.

So, where are these domesticated foxes now? Sadly, Dusicyon avus did not survive the arrival of European dogs in South America. It had been originally posited that interbreeding led to the loss of the fox as a distinct species, with less and less of the wild animal in each generation.

But it is now theorized that the hunter gatherers no longer needed the fox when they took to domesticating dogs instead. The fox would have died out due to habitat loss and changes to the continent caused by man, only 500 years ago.

Top Image: The extinct Patagonian fox was found far further north than its known habitat, and analysis of its diet suggests it was domesticated. Source: Mario Llorca / Adobe Stock.

By Joseph Green