Page 49 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 4 9

It is very difficult to imagine that a Neolithic hunter was busy with a stopwatch and
evaluating tables for cost-benefit analysis. It is also regrettable that their considerations
focus on the whole world, but not on North Africa and thus not on Egypt and the Sudan,
although there is very well documented historical evidence of hunting and the hunting
methods used here.

Nevertheless, one can orientate oneself on the criteria she lists, because many examples

of scientific studies are also cited by her. However, the perspective of her observations is
problematic because she starts from the idea that the domesticated dog (after use-
technical analysis) only knows how and what to hunt through the purposeful training by
humans. This view is unfortunately widespread and must be rejected. It explains neither
how the wolf (according to today's knowledge, or the proto-dog?) became a “wild” dog

and certainly not how it became a domesticated animal, which, according to Zimen's
definition, was specifically selected and reproduced by man.

Maria Guagnin also assumes that dogs were already domesticated [34]. It remains
puzzling how the act of domestication, i.e. a targeted mating of individuals (Zimen), is
supposed to have happened. In any case, the neoliberal goals of a modern world of ideas
seem unsuitable as a basis of investigation for a domestication theory. The mere

statement that it is better to hunt together with the dog / wolf, to protect the herds and
the home, does not seem spectacular enough for a scientific investigation.

Maria Guagnin, however, reports on a few very interesting points about hunting with
dogs in the pre-Neolithic or very early Neolithic. When describing the rock paintings
from the oasis of Jubbah and Shuwaymis on the Arabian Peninsula, she describes hunted

game, hunting methods with dogs and even draws a comparison of the type of dog from
the rock paintings to the modern Canaan dogs. However, it seems clear to her that a mere
comparison of the appearance (phenotype) with the drawings is inadmissible, as the
Canaan Dog was a type of dog described as a pariah dog until recently. But it helps to
have some idea of the dogs depicted in the petroglyphs. Her comment that the
archaeological remains can in no way be used to make a statement about ear type
(prick ears), tail type (carried over the back) or coat type (colour, structure, coat

markings) must be taken as elementary evidence.

“The sites of Shuwaymis and Jubbah are located in northwestern Saudi Arabia. ... By the
sixth millennium BC, these groups had transitioned from hunting-based subsistence

economies to mobile pastoralism; domestic cattle, sheep and goats were probably introduced
from the Levant between 6,800 and 6,200 BC (Drechsler 2007; Magee 2014). However, the
settlement history of the interior of the Arabian Peninsula remains uncertain.”