Why Is an Ancient Egyptian Mass Grave of Dogs ‘Stumping Archaeologists’?

According to Heritage Daily, archaeologists excavating in the Fayum uncovered the remains of an 8-year-old child and 142 dogs in a late antique Egyptian necropolis. There are a variety of different ways to do this, but it’s important to know that archaeologists can’t carbon date everything they find. This is because archaeologists are spending hundreds of hours gathering data, and comparing their discoveries to other forms of evidence. In the case of this burial of dogs, the broader data set includes Greco-Roman and late antiquity Egyptian burials. After all, no parent of a dog-walking-averse pre-teen would believe that a child looked after 142 dogs without a very good reason.