Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. By 11,000 years ago, at least five major ancestry lineages had diversified, demonstrating a deep genetic history of dogs during the Paleolithic. Coanalysis with human genomes reveals aspects of dog population history that mirror humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Other aspects differ, including the impacts of steppe pastoralist expansions in West and East Eurasia and a near-complete turnover of Neolithic European dog ancestry.

Two single bovine burials and one mixed animal burial (containing bovine and canid skeletal remains) have been unearthed at two Baden culture sites, Aljmaš‐Podunavlje and Osijek‐Retfala located in Eastern Croatia. Zooarchaeological analysis attributed the faunal remains to domesticated cattle (Bos taurus) and in one case a dog (Canis familiaris). Almost complete and articulated skeletons of subadult or adult cows were found in all three examined features, while pit 59/60 from Aljmaš also contained a skull belonging to an adult‐domesticated cattle and a skeleton of a very young dog, 2–3 months old. All of the skeletons are well preserved and display no evidence of carcass processing indicating that the animals were buried intentionally. Consideration of the positions in which these animals were interred and their relationship with nearby deposits enables discussion of potential animal burial strategies and possible connections with certain ritual practices in which cows and in one case a dog played important roles. The described burials represent the southernmost known distribution of the rite discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Unmodified and modified animal remains and animal representations significantly contribute to the content of Mesolithic and, in some cases, Early Neolithic hunter-gatherer burial assemblages in Northern Europe. Though these finds have received noteworthy attention, predominant archaeological narratives focus on their economic, aesthetic, or symbolic values in relation to humans. This contribution explores ways of looking at these assemblages beyond seeing them primarily as signifiers of human identities and human symbolic and/or economic choices. Drawing on insights from Russian ethnographic literature about near-recent East Siberian hunting and gathering communities, this paper explores paths for understanding unmodified and modified animal remains and animal representations from Mesolithic and Neolithic hunter-gatherer graves as animate objects and investigates ways of recognising their personhood. The paper outlines what could be considered as the material consequences of communicative actions and performative acts in relation to artefacts and animal remains that might have been perceived as having the qualities of a person, such as their placement and arrangement within the burial and treatment prior to deposition.

This contribution explores modes of human–animal interactions in hunter-gatherer communities in near-contemporary eastern Siberia and the Mesolithic of northwest Europe. By discussing notions of care and control and drawing on syntheses of Russian-language ethnographic data from eastern Siberia, this paper explores the diversity and nuances of hunter-gatherers’ interactions with animals. While some contexts may reveal respectful yet diverse treatments of the hunted animals, others suggest that hunter-gatherers also might have interacted with animals kept as pets, captives or companions, thus implicating relations in which notions of care and control seem to be tightly bound.

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