Dog Diet Reconstruction as a Tool to Assess Forager Response to Introduction of Agriculture in the Northern Plains: Stable Isotope Analysis and Ancient DNA Data

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dogs in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The transition to agriculture in the Great Plains of North America is generally assumed to have occurred through processes of migration and diffusion. But understanding the nuance of this transition at local and subregional scales requires a focus on different types of social interactions and community-level decision-making. One method is to use dogs (Canis familiaris) as a proxy for human behavior. Domesticated canids were an important resource for Plains people; used for traction, food, security, and ritual. Given their ubiquity, as well as their tendency to consume human waste and garbage, dogs can provide information about human diet and lifeways. By combining traditional zooarchaeological, geometric morphometrics, ancient DNA, and stable isotope analyses of dog teeth and mandibles from North and South Dakota, this research focuses on Late Woodland indigenous group responses the introduction of agriculture in North Dakota by reconstructing dog diet through time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Dogs in the Archaeological Record   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35718.0