BUCKINGHAM, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that a large domesticated dog’s tooth has been found at the oldest-known settlement in the area surrounding Stonehenge. Called Blick Mead, the site is known for its warm spring, good hunting, and rare stones. Previous excavations at Blick Mead have turned up stone tools from Wales, the Midlands, and the West of England, but archaeologist David Jacques of the University of Buckingham explained that isotope analysis of the 7,000-year-old tooth indicates that the dog came from the Vale of York, and so may have traveled with a Mesolithic hunter some 250 miles to arrive at the site. Information from the tooth also suggests the dog would have been roughly the size, shape, and possible color of an Alsatian. Jacques thinks Mesolithic hunter-gatherers traveled such long distances to feast and exchange ideas, technologies, and even genes at this special location some 2,000 years before Stonehenge was built. “It is very hazy and this evidence just makes the glass slightly less dark, it is a significant movement forwards,” he said. For more, go to “Quarrying Stonehenge.”
