The Dogs of Housepit 54

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Housepit 54 Project at Bridge River, British Columbia: Multidisciplinary Contributions to Household Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This study investigates the variable relationships between people and domestic dogs over time within Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site, British Columbia. While viewing domestication as an ongoing social process, this research aims to demonstrate how the roles of dogs can be redesigned based on the changing environmental and socio-economic factors. Previous archeological research and ethnographic accounts have found that the dogs of Housepit 54 were provisioned with salmon, an essential winter resource, and may have held various economic and social roles within housepit villages. These possibly concurrent roles may have included haulers of resources, assistants in hunting, consumers of refuse, or as occasional sources of food during times of scarcity or in feasting rituals. The analysis of faunal remains from the housepit floor and roof deposits presents an opportunity to not only examine taphonomic patterns resulting from maintaining populations of dogs in various roles, but also the possible underlying social and demographic contexts in which decisions on domestication are made.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• The Housepit 54 Project at Bridge River, British Columbia: Multidisciplinary Contributions to Household Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50159