(p. D1) On a sunny summer day in Croatia several years ago, an archaeologist and two dog handlers watched as two dogs, one after another, slowly worked their way across the rocky top of a wind-scoured ridge overlooking the Adriatic Sea.
. . .
Panda, a Belgian Malinois with a “sensitive nose,” according to her handler, Andrea Pintar, had begun exploring the circular leftovers of a tomb when she suddenly froze, her nose pointed toward a stone burial chest. This was her signal that she had located the scent of human remains.
Ms. Pintar said the hair on her arms rose. “I was skeptical, and I was like, ‘She is kidding me,’” she recalled thinking about her dog that day.
Archaeologists had found fragments of human bone and teeth in the chest, but these had been removed months earlier for analysis and radiocarbon dating. All that was left was a bit of dirt, the stone slabs of the tomb and the cracked limestone of the ridge.
. . .
(p. D6) . . . the experiment in Croatia marked the start of one of the most careful inquiries yet carried out of an unusual archaeological method. If such dogs could successfully locate the burial sites of mass executions, dating from World War II through the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, might they be effective in helping archaeologists find truly ancient burials?
. . .
That “test run” was the beginning of a careful study on whether human-remains detection dogs could be an asset to archaeologists. Setting up a controlled study was difficult. Dr. Glavaš had to learn the scientific literature, such as scent theory, far outside the standard confines of archaeology; the same was true for Ms. Pintar and the field of archaeology.
. . .
“I think dogs are really capable of this, but I think it’s a logistical challenge,” said Adee Schoon, a scent-detection-animal expert from the Netherlands who was not involved in the study. “It’s not something you can replicate again and again. It’s hard to train.”
And, as Dr. Schoon noted, dogs are “great anomaly detectors.” Something as subtle as recently disturbed soil can elicit a false alert from a dog that is not rigorously trained.
Nonetheless, the team returned to the necropolis for the first controlled tests in September 2015, and again a full year later. Both times, they used all four of Ms. Pintar and Mr. Nikolić’s cadaver dogs: Panda, Mali, a third Belgian Malinois and a German shepherd. They worked them on both known and double-blind searches, in areas where nobody knew if tombs were located.
The dogs located four tombs new to the archaeologists. Dr. Glavaš had suspected that a fifth site might hold a burial chest, and the dogs’ alerts, combined with excavation, proved her suspicion correct.
In September 2019, the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory published the results of their study: “This research has demonstrated that HRD dogs are able to detect very small amounts of specific human decomposition odor as well as to indicate to considerably older burials than previously assumed,” Dr. Glavaš and Ms. Pintar wrote.
Dr. Schoon, who researches and helps create protocols to train scent-detection animals worldwide, said the Iron Age necropolis study was nicely designed and “really controlled.”
. . .
Cadaver dogs are also helping archaeologists at some especially challenging sites. Mike Russo and Jeff Shanks, archaeologists with the National Park Service’s Southeast Archeological Center, had created at least 14 test holes near a promising site in northwest Florida that had been flattened during an earlier era of less diligent archaeology. They found nothing.
“We knew where it should be, but when we went there, there was absolutely no mound,” Mr. Russo said.
They then asked Suzi Goodhope, a longtime cadaver-dog handler in Florida, to bring her experienced detection dog, Shiraz, a Belgian Malinois, to the site in 2013. Shiraz and Ms. Goodhope worked the flat, brushy area for a long time. Then, Shiraz sat. Once.
“I was pretty skeptical,” Mr. Shanks said.
Nonetheless, the archaeologists dug. And dug. They went down nearly three feet — and there they found a human toe bone more than 1,300 years old.
Passing sniff tests
What is the future of using human-remains detection dogs as a noninvasive tool in archaeology?
Some archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, geologists, scientists — and even H.R.D. dog handlers who know how challenging the work is — say they have great potential. But challenges abound.
Although researchers are learning ever more about the canine olfactory system, they are still trying to pinpoint what volatile organic compounds in human remains are significant to trained dogs.
. . .
Detection dogs also must be trained for archaeology with more consistency. Often humans are the limiting factor. Sometimes, Dr. Schoon said, she can almost see a dog thinking, “Is that all you want me to do? I can do much more!”
(Note: the online version of the story was updated May 25, 2020 [sic], and has the title “When Cadaver Dogs Pick Up a Scent, Archaeologists Find Where to Dig.”)
The academic article documenting that dogs are able use their hypercapable noses to smell ancient human remains is:
