Ten thousand years ago, along the lower Illinois River, the air would have been full of yips and barks as dogs danced about the feet of early indigenous Americans. With new findings, published this month in the journal American Antiquity, the story of humanity’s long relationship with our canine friends has grown a step richer.
Archaeological excavations throughout North America have long encountered the remains of dogs, along with coyotes and wolves. Yet, until recently, it has been difficult for researchers to make definitive statements about those remains; but, as the database of discoveries has grown and the rigor of zooarchaeological methods has improved, research is revealing an ever clearer picture of the domestication of Canis familiaris.
In this new paper, lead author Dr. Angela Perri and her colleagues, re-examine the remains of several dogs kept in the Illinois State Museum’s Research and Collections Center. The dogs in question were originally found at the archaeological sites of Koster and Stilwell II, both located along tributaries of the lower Illinois River. Each of these dogs had been carefully set in individual graves, suggesting they were intentionally buried by their human companions.
The new analyses of these dog remains revealed a fair amount of morphological variability, but could clearly establish that the individuals were significantly different from their wild counterparts. The dogs would have been small to medium sized ranging from approximately 25 to 35 pounds. Ratios of stable isotopes surviving in the skeletal material revealed that they ate diets primarily composed of freshwater fish, presumably from the nearby river. Overall the dogs were in good health, but some showed signs of periodontal disease and the related organ pathologies that our vets regularly warn us about today.
Of greatest significance to understanding humanity’s history with domesticated dogs, the researchers were able to extract enough collagen from the skeletons to radiocarbon date the remains. Despite the fact that the dogs were found at two sites in multiple individual burials, all of the remains appear to have been buried approximately ten thousand years ago.
As a result, Perri told me “The dogs from Koster and Stilwell II represent the earliest dogs known in the Americas,” but we should note that they were found in Illinois, a long way from the Bering Strait and the land bridge that likely brought their ancestors into the Americas. Genetic analyses suggest that the domestic dogs of the Americas originated approximately 16,000 years ago in Siberia. Perri says that with any luck “there are a lot more early North American dogs to be found.”
We should be careful, however, about assuming what the human relationship with these animals might have been like. “We can’t be sure what the nature of the human-dog relationship would have been, but we shouldn’t be surprised if prehistoric dogs served multiple functions: companion, hunting aid, alarm, security, bed-warmer, beast of burden, and sometimes a source of fur and food,” says Perri.
Ultimately not all dogs received the same burial treatment as those found at Koster and Stilwell II. Perri notes that “intentional burials of dogs convey some meaning, that is, we assume many dogs died, but only a small number of them are found in intentional burials, so at least some dogs must have been valued by their human owners, whether they were seen as pets or hunting partners or both.”
The human experience has changed greatly over the millennia, yet certain aspects, including a skritch behind a faithful ear, echo across the years.
