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SUNDAY SCIENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS IN ALASKA SHOW HUMANS AND DOGS
BONDED 12,000 YEARS AGO  
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University of Arizona
December 4, 2024
Phys.org
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_ The bone, along with a 12,000-year-old leg bone discovered at a
nearby site, are some of the earliest evidence that ancient dogs and
wolves formed close relationships with people in the Americas. _

François Lanoë, an assistant research professor in the U of A
School of Anthropology, after helping unearth this 8,100-year-old
canine jawbone in interior Alaska in June 2023, Zach Smith

 

"Dog is man's best friend" may be an ancient cliché, but when that
friendship began is a longstanding question among scientists. A study
led by a University of Arizona researcher is one step closer to an
answer to how Indigenous people in the Americas interacted with early
dogs and wolves.

The study, published
[[link removed]] in the
journal _Science Advances_ and based on archaeological remains from
Alaska, shows that people and the ancestors of today's dogs began
forming close relationships as early as 12,000 years ago—about 2,000
years earlier than previously recorded in the Americas.

"We now have evidence that canids and people had close relationships
earlier than we knew they did in the Americas," said lead study author
François Lanoë, an assistant research professor in the U of A School
of Anthropology in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

"People like me who are interested in the peopling of the Americas are
very interested in knowing if those first Americans came with dogs,"
Lanoë added. "Until you find those animals in archaeological sites
[[link removed]], we can speculate about
it, but it's hard to prove one way or another. So, this is a
significant contribution."

Lanoë and his colleagues unearthed a tibia, or lower-leg bone, of an
adult canine in 2018 at a longstanding archaeological site in Alaska
called Swan Point
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about 70 miles southeast of Fairbanks. Radiocarbon dating showed that
the canine was alive about 12,000 years ago, near the end of the Ice
Age.

Another excavation by the researchers in June 2023—of an
8,100-year-old canine jawbone at a nearby site called Hollembaek Hill
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south of Delta Junction—also shows signs of possible domestication.

Researchers unearthed this 8,100-year-old canine jawbone in interior
Alaska in June 2023. The bone, along with a 12,000-year-old leg bone
discovered at a nearby site, are the earliest evidence that ancestors
of today's dogs formed close relationships with people in the
Americas. Credit: Zach Smith

The smoking gun? A belly of fish

Chemical analyses of both bones found substantial contributions from
salmon proteins, meaning the canine had regularly eaten the fish. This
was not typical of canines in the area during that time, as they
hunted land animals almost exclusively. The most likely explanation
for salmon showing up in the animal's diet? Dependence on humans.

"This is the smoking gun because they're not really going after salmon
in the wild," said study co-author Ben Potter, an archaeologist with
the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The researchers are confident that the Swan Point canine helps
establish the earliest known close relationships between humans and
canines in the Americas. But it's too early to say whether the
discovery is the earliest domesticated dog in the Americas.

That is why the study is valuable, Potter said, "It asks the
existential question, what is a dog?"

The Swan Point and Hollembaek Hill specimens may be too old to be
genetically related to other known, more recent dog populations,
Lanoë said.

The jawbone and the leg bone, seen here in a composite scan, both
showed substantial contributions from salmon proteins in lab testing,
leading researchers to conclude that humans had fed the fish to the
dogs. Credit: François Lanoë/University of Arizona School of
Anthropology

"Behaviorally, they seem to be like dogs, as they ate salmon provided
by people," Lanoë said, "but genetically, they're not related to
anything we know."

He noted that they could have been tamed wolves rather than fully
domesticated dogs.

'We still had our companions'

The study represents another chapter in a longstanding partnership
with tribal communities in Alaska's Tanana Valley, where
archaeologists have worked since the 1930s, said study co-author Josh
Reuther, an archaeologist with the University of Alaska Museum of the
North.

Researchers regularly present their plans to the Healy Lake Village
Council, which represents the Mendas Cha'ag people indigenous to the
area, before undertaking studies, including this one. The council also
authorized the genetic testing of the study's new specimens.

Evelynn Combs, a Healy Lake member, grew up in the Tanana Valley,
exploring dig sites as a kid and taking in what she learned from
archaeologists. She's known Lanoë, Potter and Reuther since she was a
teenager. Now an archaeologist herself, Combs works for the tribe's
cultural preservation office.

Researchers unearthed the jawbone at a site called Hollembaek Hill,
south of Delta Junction, a region where archaeologists have long done
research in partnership with local tribes. Credit: Joshua Reuther

"It is little—but it is profound—to get the proper permission and
to respect those who live on that land," Combs said.

Healy Lake members, Combs said, have long considered their dogs to be
mystic companions. Today, nearly every resident in her village, she
said, is closely bonded to one dog. Combs spent her childhood
exploring her village alongside Rosebud, a Labrador retriever mix.

"I really like the idea that, in the record, however long ago, it is a
repeatable cultural experience that I have this relationship and this
level of love with my dog," she said.

"I know that throughout history, these relationships have always been
present. I really love that we can look at the record and see that,
thousands of years ago, we still had our companions."

MORE INFORMATION: François Lanoë, Late Pleistocene onset of
mutualistic human/canid (Canis spp.) relationships in subarctic
Alaska, _Science Advances_ (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ads1335
[[link removed]]. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads1335
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JOURNAL INFORMATION: Science Advances
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Provided by University of Arizona [[link removed]]

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PA Media
The Guardian
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formation, say researchers
December 4, 2024

* Science
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* archeology
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* Dogs
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* humans
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* Alaska
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* wolves
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