Use of Human Remains Detection Dogs to Find Unmarked Precontact Human Burials in the Ohio Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Canine Resources for the Archaeologist" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Remote sensing techniques, including magnetic survey and ground penetrating radar, are commonly used in archaeology as part of cultural resource management projects. In this presentation, we share our experience using a complimentary and nascent remote sensing technique to locate human remains on archaeological sites, human remains detection (HRD) dogs. Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) have been used with increased frequency to locate human remains in forensic settings, particularly since 9/11/2001. Only recently have they been used to locate ancient human remains. HRD dogs have successfully located buried human remains at a Fort Ancient village site in the Ohio Valley, which dates from AD 1050 to AD 1275. The specialized HRD dogs found numerous human burials that were not detected by other modalities. Our results suggest that using these specialized HRD dogs in archaeological prospection is uniquely beneficial from a variety of perspectives. We will discuss the benefits of this search modality along with guidelines for proper site preparation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Canine Resources for the Archaeologist   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37331.0