Ancient warriors killed and ate their dogs as rite of passage

The remains of roasted, chopped and defleshed dog skulls in the Eurasian steppe are providing evidence of a bizarre rite of passage for young boys from 4000 years ago – one that might have echoes in the foundation myth of ancient Rome.

“The nature of this ritual was that they killed and then consumed very large numbers of dogs and some wolves with them,” says David Anthony at Hartwick College in New York.

Anthony and his Hartwick colleague Dorcas Brown analysed the bones of at least 64 different dogs and wolves. The remains came from a Bronze Age site roughly 3900 to 3700 years old, at the ancient village of Krasnosamarskoe in present-day Russia.

Read more at New Scientist.

Polar bear attacks on people set to rise as climate changes

Climate change may be driving more aggressive polar bears towards areas where people live, and the consequences could be lethal.

“You’ve got this perfect storm set up where you’ve got bears that are spending increasing amounts of time on land becoming nutritionally stressed, moving into areas of human settlements,” says Todd Atwood, a wildlife biologist at the US Geological Survey. This makes the bears more likely to come into conflict with humans.

Read more at New Scientist.