Ancient Dog Diets on the Pacific Northwest Coast: Zooarchaeological and Stable Isotope Modelling Evidence from Tseshaht Territory and Beyond

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dc.contributor.authorHillis, Dylan
dc.contributor.authorMcKechnie, Iain
dc.contributor.authorGuiry, Eric
dc.contributor.authorSt. Claire, Denis E.
dc.contributor.authorDarimont, Chris T.
dc.date.accessioned2022-05-16T13:05:42Z
dc.date.available2022-05-16T13:05:42Z
dc.date.copyright2020en_US
dc.date.issued2020
dc.description.abstractDomestic dogs are frequently encountered in Indigenous archaeological sites on the Northwest Coast of North America. Although dogs depended on human communities for care and provisioning, archaeologists lack information about the specific foods dogs consumed. Previous research has used stable isotope analysis of dog diets for insight into human subsistence (‘canine surrogacy’ model) and identified considerable use of marine resources. Here, we use zooarchaeological data to develop and apply a Bayesian mixing model (MixSIAR) to estimate dietary composition from 14 domestic dogs and 13 potential prey taxa from four archaeological sites (2,900–300 BP) in Tseshaht First Nation territory on western Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Two candidate models that best match zooarchaeological data indicate dogs predominantly consumed salmon and forage fish (35–65%), followed by nearshore fish (4–40%), and marine mammals (2–30%). We compared these isotopic data to dogs across the Northwest Coast, which indicated a pronounced marine diet for Tseshaht dogs and, presumably, their human providers. These results are broadly consistent with the canine surrogacy model as well as help illuminate human participation in pre-industrial marine food webs and the long-term role of fisheries in Indigenous economies and lifeways.en_US
dc.description.reviewstatusRevieweden_US
dc.description.scholarlevelFacultyen_US
dc.identifier.citationHillis D, McKechnie I, Guiry E, St. Claire DE, Darimont CT. (2020). Ancient Dog Diets on the Pacific Northwest Coast: Zooarchaeological and Stable Isotope Modelling Evidence from Tseshaht Territory and Beyond. Scientific Reports 10: 15630 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71574-xen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71574-x
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/13952
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherScientific Reportsen_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Canada*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ca/*
dc.subjectzooarchaeologyen_US
dc.subjectstable isotopesen_US
dc.subjectPalaeoecologyen_US
dc.subjectOcean sciencesen_US
dc.subjectmarine historical ecologyen_US
dc.titleAncient Dog Diets on the Pacific Northwest Coast: Zooarchaeological and Stable Isotope Modelling Evidence from Tseshaht Territory and Beyonden_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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