A Different Perspective on Canid Domestication: Insights from Gastrointestinal Content and Palaeofaeces

The first dogs appeared in Eurasia at least 15,000 years ago and the dog is widely regarded as the first domesticated species in human history. However, while, over the past 20 years, extensive research attention has been aimed at deciphering the origin of dogs, the later stages of their history have been largely neglected. This PhD thesis attempts to elucidate the relationship between humans and archaeological canids through state-of-the-art biomolecular techniques. These analyses are used to study the gastrointestinal content of the Tumat Puppies, two Late Pleistocene canid mummies, to evaluate the hypothesis that they are littermates as well as their proposed association with a possible mammoth butchering site. Further analyses are carried out on dog palaeofaeces from the Early Holocene Zhokhov Island site in Siberia, Russia, and from the pre-contact Nunalleq site in Alaska, USA. The results of these studies demonstrate the viability of using palaeofaeces to reconstruct dog diet in the past and show that this information can be used to understand the strategies employed by ancient cultures to manage and provision for their dogs. The thesis further presents the first successful application of palaeoproteomics to palaeofaeces, which, in combination, can provide novel insight into past dietary practices. Together, these case studies demonstrate that the analysed substrates contain important information about ancient subsistence strategies and although they are hampered by a number of methodological challenges, have great potential for future dietary studies.