Of Islands and Dogs: Ethnohistoric and Isotopic Pathways toward Understanding Past Dog Diet in Tropical Oceania

Summary

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

Ethnohistoric accounts suggest people treated dogs differently across Oceania at the time of European contact. European accounts often state that the dogs of Oceania were fed plant foods such as breadfruit, coconut, yams, and taro. Some sources also reference dogs eating fish or taking on the roles of scavengers and hunters. Collectively these accounts suggest that dogs’ diets varied across the Pacific. As dogs are omnivorous and can survive on a range of diets, it is likely that the local ecological, geological, and cultural setting influenced dogs’ diets on different islands and in different island groups. Here we present δ13C and δ15N values preserved in archaeological dog remains from differing island types (volcanic, coral, and mixed) to estimate the proportion of the animals’ diets derived from marine sources, along with the trophic level of consumed animals. Our findings suggest that, while outliers exist, the majority of dogs from a given island share similar isotopic signatures. These signatures, however, differ between island types. This indicates that island type may be a general predictor for dog diet.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35593.0