The Archaeological Dogs of New Mexico

Summary

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

Archaeologists frequently use single archaeological events to infer the entirety of the human-dog relationship in a particular time and place. While this practice makes sense given the limited sample of archaeological canids, it can lead to a one-dimensional understanding of how these two species interacted. The American Southwest, an arid region with a history of well-preserved archaeological sites, prehistoric patterns of human social change, and an extant group of direct indigenous descendants, provides a unique opportunity to study human-dog relationships through multiple lines of evidence in one region over a span of at least 1,600 years. This paper collates and contextualizes the archaeological dog record in New Mexico to discuss the variability of prehispanic human-dog relationships in the Southwest, and provide a more nuanced understanding of how dogs might have participated in early human communities.

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): 36237.0