Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
I find this story heartwarming. According to MSNBC the Peruvian Hairless Dog has been saved from extinction.
According to MSNBC the canine was first domesticated by pre-Incan cultures in Peru, but suffered a dire fate:
Native pre-Incan civilizations used the dogs for hunting and as pets for company. They are represented on the ceramic pottery of the Chimu, Moche and Chancay cultures found on the coast.They were sometimes mummified and buried along with people to help the departed find their way to the world of the dead or to continue serving their owners in the afterlife.
The Spanish brought giant war dogs to fight the natives and would often amuse themselves by setting off one such dog against a small pack of the smaller local breed.
Fortunately, the Peruvian government took action to save it:
As a result, the breed got to the 21st century on the brink of extinction, and that's when the government decided to safeguard it by ordering all archeological sites along the coast to have at least a pair [emphasis mine - afarensis] -- after Huaca Pucllana's 1989 initiative. They are now also Peru's only own world-registered breed.
An interesting application of cultural resource management! It does raise the question of how involved anthropologists should be in preserving plant and animal species important to other cultures...
Comments
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | January 22, 2007 3:08 PM
I always thought the saying "The Dogs of War" was a metaphor.
Nope - they actually did have dogs bred especially for combat. As I recall, they were large mastiff-type dogs.
Posted by: SMC | January 22, 2007 3:12 PM
The use of dogs in war goes back quite a ways. Remember Mark Anthony's:
Okay, that really comes from Shakespeare and in that context the dogs of war actually refers to soldiers, but dogs have been used in war at least since the time of Egypt.
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | January 22, 2007 4:07 PM
Most mastiffs were not bred for combat (though some were), but there are combat breeds. For example, the Great Dane is a war dog. It has been subsequently un-bred so now they are pretty much wimps.
Posted by: Greg Laden | January 22, 2007 4:09 PM
I want to clarify my previous comment.
Danes were not bred originally as war dogs, though they were used as such in Europe at certain points in time. I mention them simply because they are a great example of how breeding and "unbreeding" can happen.
Many (but I think a minority by breed) European Mastiffs were used as war dogs, but most of these types of dogs are herd protecting dogs in Asia and North Africa, as well as Europe, and most Mastiffs and derived breeds would actually make pretty lousy war dogs.
Also, the idea of a "war dog" a dog that runs at your enemy and scares the crap out of them and maybe bites them, etc. ... is probably fairly limited. More recently (mainly in the 19th century through WW II) dogs served several roles in war, including as couriers, carriers, watch dogs, etc. etc. That kind of counts as a "war dog" but a better term may be "dogs in military service).
Posted by: Greg Laden | January 22, 2007 5:20 PM
In regards to how involved anthropologists should be in preserving culturally significant plant and animal species: The preservation of culturally significant plants and animals should be at the very, very least as high on the priority list as saving artifacts, languages, historic documents and human remains. How could we ever hope to understand any culture without direct knowledge of the plants and animals that enabled its existence and provided its character?
Posted by: Cyrus | January 22, 2007 7:43 PM
Cyrus, you are of course absolutely right. The truth is that "cultural resource management" or "heritage management" (and there are other names) is the professional practice of doing just this. There is nothing odd about this at all. It's routine in the business to adapt to the needs of the situation.
Posted by: Greg Laden | January 22, 2007 9:28 PM
Granted that we should be preserving plants and animals that are important to a given group, to what extent has this been done? I can only think of a few examples. Cyrus mentions plants and animals important to a cultures survival. But what about plants and animals that are important but do not contribute materially to a cultures survival. For example, at Çatalhöyük there is an extensive iconography relating to the leopard, but very few, if any, leopard remains have been found at the site. Clearly, the leopard had symbolic value, but did not contribute materially (i.e. they didn't eat them or keep them as pets). If an analogous situation were to be found today what then? Other PPNA, PPNB, and Neolithic sites have similar iconographies involving foxes and other wild animals that were not otherwise used. If we were to find animals and plants that had the same symblic value, but were not otherwise utilized in contemporary cultures, shpould their preservation be part of any mitigation under CRM?
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | January 22, 2007 11:39 PM
I think that, in cases such as that at Çatalhöyük, thorough CR Management would call for preservation of the leopard (of course, when its not already too late), not because it was eaten or physically utilized, but because of its contribution to the character and worldview of the culture it is associated with. The association between the jaguar and the quetzal and Mayan cultures comes to mind. I think our understanding of Mayan cultures is enriched and deepened by our ability to observe these living symbols.
Posted by: Cyrus | January 23, 2007 8:44 AM
Dude, those are ugly dogs. Especially the one up on blocks.
I want one.
Posted by: Garrett | January 23, 2007 12:56 PM
Greg: yeah, most war dogs were drawn from existing breeds, any sufficiently large, muscular dog was put to use.
There is plenty of documentation of the use of war dogs, but as humans got better armoured and organized their use became more limited. That said, they were very effective at breaking up enemy formations (before plate mail, etc) because those dogs were aggressive, fast, presented a low profile and weighed as much or more than a human, even before armour and spikey bits. They were very real weapons.
Posted by: Graculus | January 23, 2007 9:46 PM
Interesting discussion on the possibility of these hairless dogs having been used as duck retrieving sight hounds (in association with bola-nets and reed rafts or dug-outs) and fish herders by the coastal population, perhaps up to 12,000 years ago. http://www.hallofmaat.com/read.php?1,436685,436685#msg-436685
Posted by: DDeden | February 1, 2007 4:18 PM
I've been raising these dogs for 22 years in the US. The dogs pictured are kept in the wild and not well protected. Look up Peruvian Inca Orchid, Peruvian Hairless or Perro sin Pelo de Peru to see how beautiful these dogs can be. They are a site hound (like a greyhound) and can run up to 30 MPH.
Posted by: Christie Smith | September 15, 2007 7:30 PM