The skeleton of a millennium-old dingo that was tamed by Barkindji ancestors has been uncovered in a midden on the Baaka (Darling River) in New South Wales.
Laureate Research Fellow Dr Loukas Koungoulos, from The University of Western Australia’s School of Social Sciences, was lead author of the paper published in Australian Archaeology, which examined a dingo skeleton from Kinchega National Park in the Menindee Lakes region of western NSW.
“Around 2001, a road cutting was made in Kinchega National Park through a cultural midden site that revealed a dingo skeleton,” Dr Koungoulos said.
“Following erosion due to flooding it became clear that the skeleton would be lost and at the request of the Menindee Aboriginal Elders Council we conducted a salvage excavation.”
At the Australian Museum the dingo, which Barkindji colleagues and community named Garli (Barkindji for dingo), was radiocarbon dated and found to have lived about 1,000 years ago.
Co-author UWA Professor Emerita Jane Balme said dingo burials were practised for thousands of years in south-eastern Australia.
“The midden in which the dingo was buried was used by Barkindji people before and for several hundred years after the burial,” Professor Balme said.
The male dingo was estimated to be four to seven years of age and had partially healed bones, including ribs and lower leg, from injuries received in the months before its death.
“Speculatively the injuries may have been caused by a large animal like a kangaroo if the dingo was involved in hunting,” Dr Koungoulos said.
“Barkindji people probably helped look after the dingo while it recovered from its injuries.”
Barkindji Elders suggested additions to the midden after the burial, such as shells, may have represented “feeding” the ancestral dingo.
This is the first published study of a dingo burial from the Baaka (Darling River) region and attests to the close relationship between Barkindji people and their tamed dingoes, part of a pattern seen in much of south-eastern Australia during the past 3,000 years.