Archaeological dogs

The domesticated dog was used not only to protect properties and warn of approaching animals or humans by barking day or night, but also it was used to hunt and even as pet as a man’s close friend for centuries. The origin of dog always has been a controversial issue. The majority of the scientists from Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Russia and USA claimed that domestication happened in Europe but domestication time was not definite. Also some scientists from China, Sweden and USA claimed that the domestication happened in Southeast of Asia. At last one scientist from Israel claimed that possible origin of dog was Middle East. Altogether there is still no definite answer about place and time of domestication.

This thesis will explore the functionality of animals, specifically looking at dogs within Viking age society. Animals are essential in societal growth, from practical uses in farming; as food, transportation, and labor, the animals that are used reflect cultural norms and trends. Animals also play a significant role in Viking age religion and pagan ideologies.
The key aim of this thesis is to explore the roles that animals play, focusing not only on roles within society, but also within ritualistic purposes. Using case studies, recorded literature, and historical documents to examine the use and purpose of animals in burial, and attempting to identify any links between how they are prepared and killed, and if there is any correlation to how they are buried in relation to their human counterparts.
The research explores the relationships between human and animals, and will strive to delve into possible reasons behind including animals in the more personal aspects of life and death. This thesis will be exploring cases from Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, and further afield in Russia and Europe, looking at similarities and regional variations.

New roles for dogs and humans
Based on the archaeological finds during the Neolithic we interpret the relationship between humans and their dogs to have significantly changed. People gained an increased understanding of the dog's different, unique properties. The dogs were stimulated by the work and collaboration, and probably developed mentally. Maybe, dogs specialized in different tasks?
The dogs were adapted to the new activities that occurred during this time. Depending on the daily life and needs, we conclude thus that dogs collaborated in various ways with the people. Certainly, watching dogs were
needed as well as good hunting dogs for different kinds of tracking down and hunting. Field mouses and mice were a constant threat to human storages of both the new, grown corn and gathered plants. The arable fields were fenced during this time and the domesticated animals were held outside. Having herding dogs to collect and keep the livestock assembled did the work for the pastoralists much easier. Hunting dogs were as necessary and important as before.

We present volume bone mineral density values from five different canid species: domestic dog (Canis familiaris), wolf (Canis lupus), coyote (Canis latrans), red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and swift fox (Vulpes velox). We use these density values to investigate Canidae remains from four archaeological sites in western Canada and show the importance of explicitly stating assumptions made about the original composition of the deposited faunal assemblage as this influences whether correlations are found between density and
percent survivorship (%MAU)

"Résumé
Des fouilles préventives réalisées à Guimps (Charente) en 2011 ont mis au jour un squelette de chien médiéval,
inhumé isolément  à l’intérieur  d’un  silo.  L’animal  présente  de  nombreuses  lésions  squelettiques.  L’excellente
conservation des vestiges osseux nous ont permis de réaliser un diagnostic rétrospectif et de démontrer la pré-
sence de deux pathologies indépendantes, un radius-curvus et une luxation patellaire médiale. Ces affections sont
ici d’origine traumatique, comme le sont les nombreuses fractures que présente également l’animal. La chrono-
logie et la répartition squelettique des lésions sont étudiées au regard de données épidémiologiques actuelles, ce
qui nous amène à proposer un diagnostic de maltraitance animale, et à soulever la question de l’identification de
ce phénomène en archéologie."

In today’s archaeology there’s a growing need for non-invasive prospection methods. However there’s a methodological gap and what’s missing is a method for locating human bones. In this study a specially trained German shepherd is put through scientific tests determining how good the dog is at telling the different between the scent of human and animal bones. The dog is also tested in an outdoor environment to simulate an actual archaeological site. The tests in this study show that the dog can distinguish between the smell of human and animal bones with an accuracy of 94,2 % and that he can detect human bones in the field. Further tests need to be conducted to calibrate the method.

Arkeologihund: En studie i experimentell arkeologi om möjligheten att använda hund som arkeologisk prospekteringsmetod för att lokalisera humanosteologiskt material

Dunaföldvár-Bibic alja lelőhelyen 2008-ban végzett leletmentő ásatás során Árpád-kori és római kori
objektumokat tártak fel. A római kori objektumok a 2–3. századra keltezhetők. A lelőhely északi részén
előkerült árokrendszer része volt a 10. objektum, amelyből 102 db kutyacsont, egy kutya teljes és egy másik
egyed részleges csontváza került elő. A két egyed közepes testméret-kategóriába tartozó, robosztusabb testfelépítésű
munkakutya volt.
Features from the Roman and the Árpádian Periods were found during the rescue excavations of the
Dunaföldvár-Bibic alja site in 2008. The Roman part of the site was dated to the 2nd–3rd centuries. Feature
no. 10 was the part of a ditch-system found in the northern part of the site. 102 pieces of dog bones came
from this feature, a complete dog skeleton and remains of another individual. The two individuals belonged
to middle size category, they were robust-built working-dogs.

The process and timing of initial dog domestication is an important topic in human evolution and one which has inspired much recent debate. Findings of putative domesticated dogs have recently been reported from two Gravettian sites by Germonpre et al. (2015a), joining a handful of other reputed " Paleolithic dogs " dating to before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Though these findings have been challenged previously, this paper draws attention to the most significant shortcoming in claims of early domesticated dogs e a lack of data on Pleistocene wolf variation. Without comprehensive data on the range of variation within Pleistocene wolf populations, the identification of domesticated dogs from prior to the Late Upper Paleolithic cannot be conclusively accepted or rejected.

Human relationships with dogs extend into the deep past, just as they strongly endure in myriad forms in the present. New research in Siberia indicates that humans may have established relationships with wolves as early as 27,000 years ago, and this relationship blossomed into an undisputed case of domestication at least 14,700 years ago (Skoglund et al. 2015). Currently, most research indicates that wolves first joined human society when we were small hunter-gatherer bands around 14,000 years ago (Janssens et al. 2018). After millennia of living in close proximity to humans, a subset of wolves diverged from the larger gene pool as they were physically and cognitively changed by their growing relationships with humans. These became the ancestors of modern dogs. Given that the specific origins and benefits of this relationship are still poorly understood, scientists, as well as dog enthusiasts, continue to wonder how and why humans began sharing their lives with dogs in the first place. Researchers can use ethnographic data in eHRAF World Cultures to better understand how hunter-gatherers use and live with dogs. That being said, the environment, societies, and dog phenotypes have all changed dramatically since ancient times (for a complete description of the theoretical issues involved see Hayter 1994). The ecological relationships recent hunter-gatherers groups have had with dogs may shed light on the use and impact of dogs in ancient societies with similar environments. With this consideration in mind, let’s look at some examples of dog use in recent hunter-gatherer societies living in a few different environments. Exploring the utility of the human-dog relationship may help us understand why we first invited them into our lives.

Advances in the isolation and sequencing of ancient DNA have begun to reveal the population histories of
both people and dogs. Over the last 10,000 y, the genetic signatures of ancient dog remains have been
linked with known human dispersals in regions such as the Arctic and the remote Pacific. It is suspected,
however, that this relationship has a much deeper antiquity, and that the tandem movement of people and
dogs may have begun soon after the domestication of the dog from a gray wolf ancestor in the late
Pleistocene. Here, by comparing population genetic results of humans and dogs from Siberia, Beringia,
and North America, we show that there is a close correlation in the movement and divergences of their
respective lineages. This evidence places constraints on when and where dog domestication took place.
Most significantly, it suggests that dogs were domesticated in Siberia by ∼23,000 y ago, possibly while
both people and wolves were isolated during the harsh climate of the Last Glacial Maximum. Dogs then
accompanied the first people into the Americas and traveled with them as humans rapidly dispersed into
the continent beginning ∼15,000 y ago.

The Mesopotamian goddess known as Gula, appears to emerge and intertwine with earlier goddess figures Baba/Bawa and Bau - themselves protective, healing dog deities of Sumer and Akkad. Some scholars believe the name Bau/ Bawa/Baba to be onomatopoeic, mimicking the bowow of a dog bark. Baba and Bau probably echo an even more ancient reverence for dogs as creatures of healing and protection. A reverence cultivated by the close companionship, coevolution and cooperation between humans and canines since the Stone Age.

Celem niniejszego tekstu jest przedstawienie gatunków zwierząt, które były hodowane dla towarzystwa w starożytnej Grecji i Rzymie, a także zbadanie, na ile owe zwierzęta można określić mianem domowych, gdyby posługiwać się współczesnymi definicjami (K. Thomas, J. Serpell, H. Herzog). Tekst odpowiada w szczególności na trzy pytania: 1. czy zwierzęta te hodowane były w przestrzeni domu, poza nim, czy też w miejscach specjalnie do tego wyznaczonych, 2. w jakim celu je hodowano – czy jedynie towarzyszyły właścicielowi, czy również pełniły funkcje użytkowe, 3. jaki był stosunek właścicieli do nich – a zwłaszcza czy można mówić o emocjonalnym przywiązaniu. Artykuł oparty jest na greckich i rzymskich źródłach pisanych oraz częściowo na materiale archeologicznym.

My chapter in the new book Dogs in the North discusses the osteological, artifactual, and ethnohistoric evidence for human-dog relations in Northwest Alaska among Inupiat, with some discussion of materials from St. Lawrence Island.

Contact me if you'd like an offprint.

The dog is the only species that was domesticated before the origin of agriculture, when human populations were living as hunter-gatherers. Two main scenarios explain the early domestication of the wolf. They can be summarized as follows. The self-domestication model considers that fossil wolves were attracted to prehistoric garbage dumps at human settlements. Some wolves adapted to the human niche, resulting in a commensal relationship. Gradually, the first primitive dogs emerged from this group. The human-initiative model proposes that Upper Palaeolithic peoples adopted wolf pups and let the most docile ones mate. After several generations of selection for docile behaviour, primitive dogs ensued. We offer critique on the self-domestication model and are supportive for the human-initiative model. We think that Upper Palaeolithic humans brought wolves to their campsites in many regions of northern Eurasia. The selection for friendly behaviour among the captive canids that led to the development of a reciprocal relationship could have been repeated several times. We propose that the adoption of wolf pups to obtain access to their products (e.g. company, fur, meat/brain for ritual consumption) could have been a first stepping stone on the path to the domestication of the wolf. The early beginnings of this process can be situated in the framework of an animated worldview of some Upper Palaeolithic societies.

This drafts gives an overview over major steps in the shift of use of society-building pagan concepts as displayed in Insular Celtic literature to their oppressive abuse by Norman-Christian conquerors. The re-interpretation of pagan  concepts as expressed in literary motifs formed part of the ideological discourse to ensure the establishment of a much more hierarchical feudal society..

The Names of All Manner of Hounds is a unique list of 1065 names for hunting dogs (running hounds, terriers and greyhounds) found in a fifteenth-century manuscript that has recently been sold into a closed private collection. The present article offers a critical edition of this unusual text, which has never been published before, preceded by an introduction that contextualizes its contents in terms of the hunting culture and the milieu to which they belong. For these purposes I examine a number of medieval and early modern hunting treatises that are revealing about attitudes to hunting dogs and that mention a smattering of names given to them. I discuss the enthusiasm felt by hunters towards their hounds, an enthusiasm often expressed in terms of the pleasure that is derived from the sound of a pack in chase, and consider the importance of knowing hounds individually by name. I proceed to describe the codex in which the list is found, then discuss some of its salient features, including patterns in the names and some notable linguistic features among them. The article closes with a critical edition of the list of names together with a brief but comprehensive apparatus criticus.

Resumen:
El presente texto forma parte de una investigación más amplia, sobre la historia prehispánica y colonial temprana del “canis familiaris” en el Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo, México. Aquí realizamos un primer acercamiento a la historia de los perros europeos en Michoacán, sustentado en las crónicas del siglo XVI, donde desarrollaremos los siguientes tópicos: 1) una somera contextualización del Reino de Michoacán y la cultura tarasca; 2) el impacto que causaron los perros europeos en la cosmovisión de los indígenas michoacanos; 3) el uso de perros en la exploración, guerra y castigos por parte de los conquistadores españoles en Michoacán; y 4) las vida cotidiana de perros indígenas y españoles en la Provincia de Michoacán para la década de 1580.

Palabras clave: Perro, Tarascos, Michoacán, México.

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Abstract:
This text is part of a broader investigation on the pre-Hispanic and early colonial history of “canis familiaris” in the State of Michoacan de Ocampo, Mexico. Here we make a first approach to the history of European dogs in Michoacan, based on the chronicles of the 16th century, where we will develop the following topics: 1) a contextualization of the Kingdom of Michoacan and the Tarascan culture; 2) the impact that European dogs had on the worldview of the indigenous people of Michoacan; 3) the use of dogs in exploration, warfare and punishment by the Spanish conquerors in Michoacán; and 4) the daily lives of indigenous and Spanish dogs in the Michoacán Province in the 1580s.

Key Words: Dog, Tarascan, Michoacan, Mexico.

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CARVAJAL MEDINA, RICARDO. “Los perros en la conquista y colonización del Reino de Michoacán, México (1521-1580)”, en: Muñoz Muñoz, Alejandro; García Cobeña, Ana Rita; Rodríguez Jorquera, Sandra; Galindo Herráiz, Esther (Editores). Actas II y III Congreso de Jóvenes Historiadores y Humanistas de la Universidad de Cádiz. Cádiz, Ediciones El Boletín/Universidad de Cádiz, 2021, Pp. 195-202.

At the Srubnaya-culture settlement of Krasnosamarskoe in the Russian steppes, dated 1900–1700 BCE, a ritual occurred in which the participants consumed sacrificed dogs, primarily, and a few wolves, violating normal food practices found at other sites, during the winter. At least 64 winter-killed canids, 19% MNI/37% NISP, were roasted, fileted, and apparently were eaten. More than 99% were dogs. Their heads were chopped into small standardized segments with practiced blows of an axe on multiple occasions throughout the occupation. Two adult men and two adult women from the nearby cemetery, possibly two generations of resident ritual specialists , showed unusual skeletal pathologies and post-mortem treatments. The repeated violation of the canid-eating taboo, unique to this site, combined with the metaphor of human transformation into male canids, suggests that the participants entered a liminal state typical of a rite of passage. Parallels from comparative Indo-European (IE) mythology provide the indigenous narrative that gave meaning to this ritual: we argue that it was an initiation into the widely attested IE institution of the youthful male war-band, symbolized by transformation into a dog or wolf.

The aim of this article is to examine a passage of the Paul Diacon’s Historia Langobardorum, where the author writes about the presence of cynocephalic warriors, dog-headed men, among the Lombards. The legend is interpreted in the light of the symbolism of the dog and of its antagonist, the wolf, and in the light of the allegory of the cynocephalus in the medieval literature. The last two sections are dedicated to the persistence of the word “dog” to indicate a social role of the animal in the Germanic and Italian Middle Ages

Two papers published in Claire Bellier Laureline Cattelain et Pierre Cattelain (dir.), Chiens et Chats dans la Préhistoire et l’Antiquité, GUIDES ARCHÉOLOGIQUES DU MALGRÉ-TOUT (2015).
The first one recalls the History of the Dog in the Greek Antiquity and the second one the History of the Cat. In both cases, the History of the animal appears to be a part of the History of the Man.

Premier animal domestiqué, le chien est partout dans l'Egypte ancienne. Auxiliaire de chasse ou de police, compagnon de la maisonnée, lévrier ou basset, il reçoit parfois un nom propre dans un répertoire analogue à celui des humains. L'accent est mis sur les noms des chiens de la stèle d'Antef II (11e dynastie).

"Abstract:

The following article explores the etymology of the Basque word zakur ‘dog’ and the palatalized form of the same txakur, often used today to refer to small dogs and dogs in a generic sense. Particular attention is paid to the question of the relationship between the latter term and Romance forms such as cacharro ‘puppy, young dog’. The study also examines the problems that arise from etymologies put forward in the past including the most recent one of the Basque philologist Joseba Lakarra, who derives the term zakur from a compound form that, according to him, originally meant ‘guardian agazapado’, i.e., ‘crouching guardian’.

Over the past decade Lakarra has published a series of articles in which he puts forward his reconstruction of an entity he calls Pre-Proto-Basque, whose exact referential time frame is still rather unclear. In these articles a large number of new etymologies are introduced, including the one he dedicates to zakur, along with a particular kind of methodology and theoretical basis for investigating them. While the material published by Lakarra is readily available on the web, there has been little critical discussion of its merits. The present study is an attempt to remedy this situation by examining in detail the etymology of the term zakur and by doing so, to bring into focus the value of applying a more principled approach to the Basque data, one that derives it methodological and theoretical orientation from the field of cognitive linguistics, and more concretely from the emerging subfield of cultural linguistics.

In a broad sense, the term cultural linguistics refers to linguistic research that explores the relationship between language and culture, bringing the sociocultural embedding and entrenchment of language into view and consequently charting the interactions of speakers of the language with their ever changing environment, the latter understood in the amplest sense of the term. Thus, cultural linguistics has a diachronic dimension as it attempts to understand language as a subsystem of culture and to examine how various language features reflect and embody culture over time. ‘Culture’ here is meant in the anthropological sense; that is, as a system of collective beliefs, worldviews, customs, traditions, social practices, as well as the values and norms shared by the members of the cultural group.

Until very recently, there has been a dearth of research on the Basque language and culture that embraces the methodological and theoretical premises of the field of cognitive linguistics and the related sub-discipline of cultural linguistics. Outstanding exceptions have been the investigations carried out by Iraide Ibarretxe Antuñano (1). In short, very little research has been done on Euskera which takes into consideration the fact that the relationship between language and culture has significant implications for diachronic studies of the language: that language is a not only a system firmly grounded in culture, it is a macro-level system that through the individual choices of its agents at the micro-level, changes across time, dynamically. It functions therefore as a complex adaptive system (CAS) (2).
This article is the second (3) in a series in which the methodology and theoretical approaches utilized by Lakarra to develop his etymologies will be examined and contrasted with the more cognitively oriented approaches operating today to structure research in cultural linguistics. I argue that these approaches can bring new insights into the role of human cognition and individual speaker choices, most especially when applied to diachronic studies of the Basque language (4).

(1) Cf. http://unizar.academia.edu/IraideIbarretxeAntu%C3%B1ano.

(2) For further reading on the application of theoretical model of language as a complex adaptive system, cf. Roslyn M. Frank and Nathalie Gontier. 2010. On constructing a research model for historical cognitive linguistics (HCL): Some theoretical considerations. In: Heli Tissari, Paivi Koivisto-Alanko, Kathyren I. Allan y Margaret Winter (eds.), Historical Cognitive Linguistics, 31-69. Berlin y New York: Mouton de Gruyter. http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/446528/On_constructing_a_research_model_for_historical_cognitive_linguistics_HCL_Some_theoretical_considerations.

(3) The first paper in the series, “Repasando a Joseba Lakarra: Observaciones sobre algunas etimologías en euskera a partir de un acercamiento más cognitivo”, is now available online: http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/1895187/Repasando_a_Joseba_Lakarra_Observaciones_sobre_algunas_etimologias_en_euskera_a_partir_de_un_acercamiento_mas_cognitivo.

(4) There are other papers available on Academia.edu which explore the application of this CAS approach to the Basque language as well as to other European languages. These papers, especially when read in the following order, also provide an overview of the possible significance of such studies for the recuperation of aspects of European cultural and linguistic (pre-)history and identity which have not been detected previously:

a) http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/344519/The_language-organism-species_analogy_A_complex_adaptive_systems_approach_to_shifting_perspectives_on_language_;

b) http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/355424/Shifting_Identities_Metaphors_of_discourse_evolution; 

c) http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/471942/A_single_document_containing_three_published_articles_1_Recovering_European_ritual_bear_hunts_A_comparative_study_of_Basque_and_Sardinian_ursine_carnival_performances_2_Evidence_in_Favor_of_the_Palaeolithic_Continuity_Refugium_Theory_PCRT_Hamalau_and_its_linguistic_and_cultural_relatives_Part_1_3_Evidence_in_Favor_of_the_Palaeolithic_Continuity_Refugium_Theory_PCRT_Hamalau_and_its_linguistic_and_cultural_relatives_Part._2._;

d) http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/471751/Shifting_identities_A_comparative_study_of_Basque_and_Western_cultural_conceptualizations;

e) http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/1193145/Palaeolithic_Continuity_Refugium_Theory_A_New_Approach_to_the_Linguistic_Prehistory_of_Europe._Azken_Glaziazio_Handiko_Babeslekua_eta_Euskara._Bergara_2011-10-19;

f) And then most particularly the later sections of these papers where the etymologies of the terms beguine and charivari are subjected to a diachronic analysis with respect to their cultural and linguistic entrenchment: http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/462898/Euskal_Herriko_Eginkizun_Erligiosoaren_Inguruko_Azterketa_Diakronikoa_Serora_eta_bere_laguntzaileak. (English translation: A Diachronic Analysis of the Religious Role of the Woman in Basque Culture: The Serora and her Helpers: http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/462178/A_Diachronic_Analysis_of_the_Religious_Role_of_the_Woman_in_Basque_Culture_The_Serora_and_her_Helpers); and 2) http://uiowa.academia.edu/RoslynMFrank/Papers/451548/Singing_Duels_and_Social_Solidarity_The_Case_of_the_Basque_Charivari.
"

En este artículo se tocan los puntos centrales en el origen del perro, el animal doméstico más antiguo conocido. Desde el tiempo de origen, hasta los cambios en su morfología, comportamiento y metabolismo, el perro ha pasado por transformaciones mayores que recientemente estamos empezando a entender gracias a avances en el estudio del ADN antiguo y a nuevos descubrimientos paleontológicos y arqueológicos de Asia.

This chapter explores the role of hunting dogs in forager groups and their role as the advent of animal biotechnology in the prehistory. It outlines the ways in which dogs can be used as hunting biotechnology, how dogs can be incorporated into existing subsistence models, and how we can identify hunting dogs in the archaeological record. The analysis of cross-cultural utilization of dogs as a hunting tool in the ethnographic and ethnohistoric record is used to suggest insights into the ways dogs may have been utilized as a hunting adaptation by people in the past. Similarly, cost-benefit analyses employed for non-living tools, such as lithics, are employed to contextualize dogs as a quantifiable technology within optimal foraging models.

The cemetery of Valsgärde, Sweden contains 92 human graves dating from the 3rdc. BCE to the 11thc. CE, the majority and most elaborate of which date to the Vendel and Viking Ages (approximately 500-1100 CE). This total consists of 15 unburnt boat graves, 15 inhumation and chamber graves, and 62 cremations. In addition to the human remains and wealthy goods, the site is noted for its richness in zooarchaeological material, with a variety of primarily domestic animals appearing buried alongside humans. One of the most commonly represented animals in these graves is the domestic dog (Canis familiaris), a trend which has been noted in many other sites from Vendel and Viking Age Sweden. This project quantifies and analyses the morphology of the dogs in the unburnt Vendel and Viking graves at Valsgärde in order to a) assemble a general typology and demographic profile for the population, b) assess the level of morphological variability in the population, and c) speculate on the possible roles these dogs may have played in Scandinavian society in the Late Iron Age. Comparisons are made between the character of dog burials in the Vendel vs Viking periods, to identify any notable shifts in trend over time. The analysis shows that while the size of the dogs generally remains consistent throughout both periods, a number of different types are represented within this limited size range, and the Viking Age burials contain notably fewer dogs than the graves of the Vendel Period.

El marco de interacción que se establece entre el Homo sapiens y otras especies, es uno de los nichos de estudio en los que podemos profundizar a raíz de los restos materiales. La capacidad que tenemos de crear nuestro propio mundo con base en lo que nos rodea, hace que los animales intercedan en ello, situándose los domésticos en un plano de relación privilegiado. Es aquí donde el caso del perro (Canis familiaris) resulta un campo paradigmático de estudio, que ha arrojado considerables resultados dentro de la investigación arqueológica mexicana. Sin embargo, al revisar este fenómeno en la región del Occidente de Mesoamérica, surge la necesidad de realizar una aproximación integradora, que no se limite a la recurrente visión postclasica del perro como animal de paso al más allá.
Con la perspectiva teórica que la Zooarqueología Social Interpretativa ofrece, desarrollamos una estrategia de investigación con base en estudios de caso, adscritos a tres subáreas distintas. En las Tierras Altas Orientales se emplaza el sitio de La Mina (Michoacán), concretamente en la orilla sur del Lago de Cuitzeo. Se trata de una plataforma habitacional de finales del Epiclásico (500/600–900 A.D.), con entierros en su base donde aparecen cachorros junto a humanos. El segundo caso lo constituye el sitio de Los Guachimontones (Jalisco), en el centro de las Tierras Altas Occidentales. Una urbe neurálgica para el Clásico temprano (100 B.C.–250 A.D.), en la que se documentan cánidos domésticos en diversos contextos hasta el Postclásico (900–1521 A.D.). Por último, en las Planicies Costeras estudiamos el sitio de la Loma Funeraria en la Terminal de Gas Natural Licuado Manzanillo y el área residencial y fúnebre de Chocohuistle en el Patio de Maniobras Tepalcates II. Una amplia muestra de perros y humanos compartiendo el mismo espacio, durante un intervalo temporal que va del Formativo terminal a inicios del Postclásico (300 B.C.-900 A.D.).
Las bases metodológicas utilizadas para analizar este universo de muestra cuentan con una orientación hermenéutica, en las que prima la obtención de datos inductivos y la colaboración en términos transdisciplinares. Sus fundamentos son el análisis de los restos óseos, la obtención de dataciones numéricas y la estimación de tendencias paleodietéticas, mediante un protocolo arqueométrico de lectura de elementos traza por XRF. De esta forma accedemos al análisis de la relación entre el perro, el humano y viceversa en sus propios términos, con el objetivo principal de reconocer el contexto social en el que se dio esta simbiosis. Aún con todo y que la mayoría de nuestros casos son potencialmente fúnebres los resultados reflejan un panorama heterogéneo, reafirmando la maleabilidad de formas que toma la relación que hemos mantenido con estos cuadrúpedos.