Ancient bobcat buried like a human, wearing a shell and bearclaw necklace and with its paws
placed together "respectfully." The researchers can only speculate as to whether it was a beloved pet or whether there was spiritual significance to the burial (or both).
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http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2015/07/ancient-bobcat-buried-human-being
"About 2000 years ago in what is today western Illinois, a group of Native Americans buried something unusual in a sacred place. In the outer edge of a funeral mound typically reserved for humans, villagers interred a bobcat, just a few months old and wearing a necklace of bear teeth and marine shells. The discovery represents the only known ceremonial burial of an animal in such mounds and the only individual burial of a wild cat in the entire archaeological record, researchers claim in a new study.
....The Hopewell buried their dogs—though in their villages, not in these mounds—
.....“It shocked me to my toes,” he says. “I’ve never seen anything like it in almost 70 excavated mounds.” Because the mounds were intended for humans, he says, somebody bent the rules to get the cat buried there. “Somebody important must have convinced other members of the society that it must be done. I’d give anything to know why.”....
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's possible, I guess. 
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