When is a wolf a dog? Combined geometric morphometrics and stable isotope analyses for differentiating wild from domestic canids on the Northern Plains

Abstract

Domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris) were an important resource for many indigenous groups, including Plains peoples. Plains people used dogs for hauling materials, as camp or village warning systems, as sources of food, and as ritual participants. The identification of domestic Plains dogs is complicated by their wolf-like body size, and from hybridization with Canis lupus and Canis latrans, which also appear in the archaeological record. By combining stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope analyses with geometric morphometric studies of canid mandibles and lower teeth from Plains Village sites in North Dakota, this article presents a methodology for differentiating wild and domestic canids.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Dogs
• Wolves
• Coyotes
• Stable isotope analysis
• Geometric morphometrics
• Northern Great Plains

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the training in R and geometric morphometrics by Matthew T. Boulanger, and the advice and editing by Kacy Hollenback, Ryan Breslawski, Matthew Clemens, Robert Bozell, Robert Hoard, and three anonymous reviewers. I am also thankful for the laboratory assistance, preparation, and isotope protocol discussions from and with David Dettman and Stanley Ambrose. I would also like to thank those who helped in the preparation of samples: Matthew Fort, Peixan Shu, Zachary Benmamoun, and the team at the State Historical Society of North Dakota: Meagan Schoenfelder, Wendi Field Murray, Fern Swenson, and Brooke Morgan. Thank you to the Plains Anthropological Society Student Paper Award Committee for reading an earlier version of this paper, and for choosing it and me as the 2017 Student Paper Award recipient. I am especially thankful to the North Dakota Archaeological Association for funding this project through the Cythia Kordecki Award, the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University through the Garry Weber Archaeology Award, and the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University through the Graduate Student Pilot Study Award.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by author

Data availability: The R code used for the GM analysis is included in the supplementary data. All isotope data are included in this article.

Notes on contributor

Abigail E. Fisher is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Her research focuses on reconstructing forager-farmer interaction on the northern Great Plains using stable isotope analysis of dogs to track Late Plains Woodland maize consumption.

ORCID

Abigail E. Fisher http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0817-5377