Rosa,
From a cultural-historical perspective don't you think that the reciprocal relation between animals and humans that we call domestication would be an appropriate framework for exploring the issue of the nature of "animal consciousness." From what I know of the archaeology, that relation is older than agriculture and might even include various forms of pre-domesticated symbiosis; e.g., the transhumance of hunters with the seasonal movements of the herds leading to large scale species domestication, at one end, and perhaps the early symbiosis of canines and humans in hunting at the other. Ibn Khaldun, the 14th century Arab historian, developed his entire theory of civilization around the relation between settled town-dwellers (ag based) and nomadic Bedoins (pastoral based), with lots of extensions into personality formation, social organization, etc. all of this trailing geographically across the Sahara to the Dinka, Nuer, and others cattle-people and then down into the intra-lacustrine regions of Africa (Rwanda and Burundi) with the pastoral based Tutsi (dominant) and the agriculture based Hutu (subordinated in a feudal system of allegiances according to Jacques Maquet), symbioses within symbioses. Comparative activity systems of animal and human, etc. as a basis for exploring these questions, eg, work dogs v. show dogs, or french poodles, let alone the feral cats that live in Cooper's Gulch across the street always alley-catting around this neighborhood. . .
Paul H. Dillon
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