Among his remains, which have now been analyzed by a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, and the Illinois State Museum, in the US, appeared a necklace decorated with shells and bear tusks. According to these experts in the Midcontinental Journal of Archeology , it is the only ritual burial of an animal discovered to date in one of these enclaves and the only known one in which the protagonist is one of these felines.
Lynx bones came to light in the 1980s, when the largest of fourteen burial mounds erected by a Hopewell people on a bluff above the Illinois River was excavated. This contained the bodies of twenty-two people arranged in a circle around the grave of a child and that of a canid, also located inside the ring. At least that was thought at first. After all, the Hopewells, who survived between the 2nd centuries BC. C. and V, had the custom to bury their dogs in their settlements.
The remains were stored in the Illinois State Museum until Angela R. Perri, a zoologist and anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute, detected that the skull matched that of a felid. Analysis revealed that it was a bobcat, Lynx rufus , between four and seven months old. The absence of markings suggested that it had not been euthanized, but rather that it may have been a much loved pet. This would have been intentionally buried in that structure, which the natives used to highlight a sacred area belonging to their ancestors.
“It seems that the lynx was buried in a very respectful way; their claws were even arranged so that they were together, ”says Perri. “His body was not thrown into a hole without more,” says anthropologist Ken Farnsworth, from the Illinois State Museum, who also participated in the study. “Someone important must have convinced the rest of the group to do so,” he stresses.
