Factoid of the day

Ancient Chihuahuas Once Roamed, and Eaten, in Southeastern U.S.?




why are these pots important?

most research about the origins of the modern Chihuahua breed speculated that they were the result of crossbreeding native Mexican dogs with European or Chinese dogs brought with the first explorers in the 1500s. Since the dog pots in Georgia dated to around 1325 AD this seemed to contradict this widely held belief about the origins of the Chihuahua.

so why did they raise the dogs?

The shocking conclusion was that Native Americans in the southeast likely raised Chihuahuas as food for their elite and that these Chihuahuas arrived there from west Mexico, 1800 miles away,

I should note that this is a speculation, not a known fact.

But don't tell Paris Hilton.


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update: I've been wondering about the part where it said the ate the dogs...

The South American Indians did eat a type of guinea pig, but these small animals are quiet and easy to raise (my son's first mom raised them in her kitchen for meat).

But these dogs tend to be high strung and wirey. So did they eat them, or did they use them to hunt and kill rodents?

according to Wikipedia, they were eaten:

In the time of the Aztecs, Mexican Hairless Dogs were bred, am

ong other purposes,^[102] for their meat. Hernán Cortés reported when he arrived in Tenochtitlan in 1519, "small gelded dogs which they breed for eating" were among the goods sold in the city markets.^[103] These dogs, Xoloitzcuintles, were often depicted in pre-Columbian Mexican pottery. The breed was almost extinct in the 1940s, but the British Military Attaché in Mexico City, Norman Wright, developed a thriving breed from some of the dogs he found in remote villages.^[104]

more HERE.

The hairless dog is probably the first domesticated animal in the Americas, they were bred for companionship, hunting and food