When Cadaver Dogs Pick Up a Scent, Archaeologists Find Where to Dig

The New York Times ^ | 19 May 2020 | Cat Warren

[Theoria]

Recent research highlights the power of the canine nose to uncover buried remains from ancient human history.

On a sunny summer day in Croatia several years ago, an archaeologist and two dog handlers watched as two dogs, one after another, slowly worked their way across the rocky top of a wind-scoured ridge overlooking the Adriatic Sea.

Bodies had lain in beehive-shape tombs on this necropolis, part of the prehistoric hill fort of Drvišica, since the Iron Age. The two dogs, trained to detect human remains, were searching for scents that were thousands of years old.

Panda, a Belgian Malinois with a “sensitive nose,” according to her handler, Andrea Pintar, had begun exploring the circular leftovers of a tomb when she suddenly froze, her nose pointed toward a stone burial chest. This was her signal that she had located the scent of human remains.

Ms. Pintar said the hair on her arms rose. “I was skeptical, and I was like, ‘She is kidding me,’” she recalled thinking about her dog that day.

Archaeologists had found fragments of human bone and teeth in the chest, but these had been removed months earlier for analysis and radiocarbon dating. All that was left was a bit of dirt, the stone slabs of the tomb and the cracked limestone of the ridge.

Human-remains detection dogs, or cadaver dogs, are used worldwide on land and water. Well-trained dogs help find the missing and dead in disasters, accidents, murders and suicides. But the experiment in Croatia marked the start of one of the most careful inquiries yet carried out of an unusual archaeological method.

[21twelve]

Speaking of the average person and dog - my sister had a golden retriever. I was maybe 13 on a walk with the dog and at the creek was throwing rocks in the water. The dog went out and dove down and brought back a rock.

After a couple of times I thought “Hey - that looks like the same rock!?”

So I would pick up a distinctive rock and chuck it in. That dog would bring back the rock I had thrown (using a new rock each time) every time.

I told my sister about it - she didn't seem to care, or didn't believe me.

I went on the lake fishing one time with the dog. I soon put together her antsy behavior with catching fish! In areas where I would catch some she would be all antsy and sniffing before I would even catch any. In places where I didn't she just sat calmly in the boat. I'm guessing she could smell them.