Episode 12

Barkaeology: A Brief History of Dogs

What better time to discuss the domestication and use of Canis familiaris than here in the dog days of summer? Anna and Amber discuss recent research tracing how wolves evolved into the pups we know and love, the earliest dogs known in the archaeological record, the evolution of our relationship with them, and some Very Good Boys and Girls throughout history. Plus, medieval pet name suggestions, Amber chokes up about the Odyssey (typical), waggy little flop-eared foxes, and Anna’s Movie Minute takes on Alpha (2018).

The First Dogs May Have Been Domesticated In Central Asia (Popular Science)

North America’s earliest dogs came from Siberia (Science News)

Human Footprints at Chauvet Cave (Archeology)

26,000-Year-Old Child Footprints Found Alongside Paw Prints Reveal Oldest Evidence of Human-Canine Relationship (Ancient Origins)

Earliest Dogs in North America (Canadian Museum of Nature)

America’s first dogs vanished after Europeans arrived, study finds (Washington Post)

Ancient American dogs almost completely wiped out by arrival of European breeds (AAAS)

The evolutionary history of dogs in the Americas (Science)

America's Oldest Dog Discovery Helps Solve Canine DNA Riddle (National Geographic)

Prehistoric Puppy May Be Earliest Evidence of Pet-Human Bonding (National Geographic)

Dog Love Isn’t A New Thing: Even Yudhisthir Refused To Enter Heaven Without His Loyal Dog (Scoop Whoop)

Trut, L. (1999). Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment. American Scientist, 87 (2) DOI: 10.1511/1999.2.160

Trut, L. (2001). Experimental Studies of Early Canid Domestication. In The Genetics of the Dog, A Ruvinsky and J. Sampson, eds.

A Loyal Companion and Much More: Dogs in Ancient China (Ancient Origins)

On the custom of burying dogs in prehistoric burials (Chinese Archaeology)

Abuwtiyuw (Wikipedia)

Burying Dogs in Ancient Cis-Baikal, Siberia: Temporal Trends and Relationships with Human Diet and Subsistence Practices (PLOS One)

In Medieval Times, Popular Dog Names Included Little Hammer, Fortuna and Bo (Smithsonian)

Medieval Pet Names (Medievalists.net)

https://youtu.be/uIxnTi4GmCo

https://youtu.be/_AtP7au_Q9w

https://youtu.be/ih7P6E7OBl0

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The Dirt Podcast
Archaeology, Anthropology, and our shared human past.

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The Dirt Podcast

As science communicators in anthropology and archaeology, we hosts of The Dirt acknowledge that we hold a position of considerable privilege and opportunity, and commit ourselves to continuous learning, unlearning and reflection. We recognize that our disciplines, as well as our own lives, are rooted in and propped up by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession.

We now reside on the stolen ancestral territory of the Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and on the lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations, but over its lifetime, The Dirt has also been produced on the unceded traditional territory of the Piscataway Conoy and Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, as well as that of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Patwin and Miwok peoples and all those dispossessed by Cession 296. We offer our show as a platform for Indigenous scholarship, history, and cultural expression, through citation and conversation, and we welcome the opportunity to host and compensate Indigenous scholars of archaeology and anthropology as interview guests.

Likewise, we encourage all listeners who reside in settler-colonial states to learn about on whose land they reside, their place in the ongoing process of colonization, and how to contribute materially to reparations and Indigenous sovereignty.