Dog body size in Siberia and the Russian Far East and its implications

Losey, Robert J.; Nomokonova, Tatiana; Косинцев, П. А.; Bachura, Olga P.; Gusev, A. V.; Vasyukov, Dmitry D.; Savinetsky, Arkady; Тишкин, А.; Grushin, Sergei P.; Gorbunov, V; Papin, D.; Sablin, Mikhail; Popov, Alexander N.; Lazin, Boris V.; Nikitin, Iurii G.; Bazaliiskii, Vladimir I.; Pitulko, Vladimir V.; Kasparov, Aleksei

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106430

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Briefly, most Holocene dog populations had to adapt to far smaller bodies than their Pleistocene predecessors and those of Holocene wolves. Correlated with their reduced sizes, Holocene dogs likely had smaller gape sizes and less bite strength than wolves, making handling and processing larger prey and larger food items more difficult (26). Body size is also positively correlated with foraging range size in extant carnivores (but does not necessarily determine it), and this could be used to infer that most Holocene dogs, particularly those living as free-ranging animals, would have had reduced range sizes compared to those of wolves (26).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Siberia, no Pleistocene canid remains are widely accepted as dogs, but dogs are well documented in Siberian forager contexts by the early Holocene (~9000 years ago) and are widespread in southern Siberian pastoralist and agriculturalist societies by the Late Holocene (~3000 years ago) ( 6 , 22 – 25 ). Examination of skeletal remains from 199 dogs from 28 Siberian archaeological sites shows a gradual decrease in body mass through the Holocene, with the overall mean being just 16.4 ± 4.64 kg (Table 1) ( 26 ). Only 23 of the 199 dogs (11.6%) had body mass estimates greater than 21.5 kg.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Correlated with their reduced sizes, Holocene dogs likely had smaller gape sizes and less bite strength than wolves, making handling and processing larger prey and larger food items more difficult ( 26 ). Body size is also positively correlated with foraging range size in extant carnivores (but does not necessarily determine it), and this could be used to infer that most Holocene dogs, particularly those living as free-ranging animals, would have had reduced range sizes compared to those of wolves ( 26 ). Such changes surely necessitated shifts in how dogs fed—their capabilities, on average, were quite different from their Pleistocene kin.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The evolution of dog diet and foraging: Insights from archaeological canids in Siberia

et al. 2022

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Research on the evolution of dog foraging and diet has largely focused on scavenging during their initial domestication and genetic adaptations to starch-rich food environments following the advent of agriculture. The Siberian archaeological record evidences other critical shifts in dog foraging and diet that likely characterize Holocene dogs globally. By the Middle Holocene, body size reconstruction for Siberia dogs indicates that most were far smaller than Pleistocene wolves. This contributed to dogs’ tendencies to scavenge, feed on small prey, and reduce social foraging. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of Siberian dogs reveals that their diets were more diverse than those of Pleistocene wolves. This included habitual consumption of marine and freshwater foods by the Middle Holocene and reliance on C 4 foods by the Late Holocene. Feeding on such foods and anthropogenic waste increased dogs’ exposure to microbes, affected their gut microbiomes, and shaped long-term dog population history.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The evolution of dog diet and foraging: Insights from archaeological canids in Siberia

et al. 2022

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“…Estimates of dog size offer no clues to the role played by dogs in the day‐to‐day lives of human populations. Small/medium‐sized dogs in the Eneolithic–EBA could be useful as guard dogs, shepherding or hunting dogs (small prey only), as pets, or for consumption, but probably not for military purposes, hunting large ungulates, or fighting off wolves and bears, so not for guarding livestock (debated in Harcourt, 1974; Bartosiewicz, 2002; Losey et al, 2020). Large and very small dogs—potentially with other roles—became common only later (Section 5.1).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dog size and variability in the Late Eneolithic: Drilled teeth from Corded Ware graves in Bohemia

Kyselý

2021

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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The hundreds of drilled dog teeth—mainly incisors and canines—found as ornaments in the graves of women and children from the Corded Ware culture in Bohemia, Czech Republic, provide a unique opportunity for biometric investigation. Large series of teeth often found in a single burial set enable consideration of variability in intra‐site dog size, which in contrast to many later cultures/periods appears to be surprisingly low, probably due to random inter‐breeding. The dogs in this Late Eneolithic (Copper Age) culture must have been relatively small: Their teeth are comparable with those of present‐day medium‐sized breeds, such as Fox Terrier, Cocker Spaniel and Standard Schnauzer, which are usually 35–50 cm high at the withers. Also discussed here are the placing of Corded Ware dogs in the context of other cultures, possible inter‐grave and inter‐culture differences, and the young age of the dogs whose teeth were used in the ornaments.

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“…Increasing Levels of Western Eurasian Ancestry in Siberian Dogs over the Last 2 kya. We then applied our admixture graph-based method to assess admixture from Western Eurasian sources into later Siberian dogs from contexts dating between 2.0 kya to the present day, following a period of an apparent absence of directly dated dog remains in Siberia between ∼6.0 kya to 4.3 kya (24). In contrast to the earlier Lake Baikal dogs, all of the best fitting models for these dogs involved admixture from a Western Eurasian source (Fig.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Modern Siberian dog ancestry was shaped by several thousand years of Eurasian-wide trade and human dispersal

Feuerborn

Carmagnini

Losey

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Dogs have been essential to life in the Siberian Arctic for over 9,500 y, and this tight link between people and dogs continues in Siberian communities. Although Arctic Siberian groups such as the Nenets received limited gene flow from neighboring groups, archaeological evidence suggests that metallurgy and new subsistence strategies emerged in Northwest Siberia around 2,000 y ago. It is unclear if the Siberian Arctic dog population was as continuous as the people of the region or if instead admixture occurred, possibly in relation to the influx of material culture from other parts of Eurasia. To address this question, we sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 20 ancient and historical Siberian and Eurasian Steppe dogs. Our analyses indicate that while Siberian dogs were genetically homogenous between 9,500 to 7,000 y ago, later introduction of dogs from the Eurasian Steppe and Europe led to substantial admixture. This is clearly the case in the Iamal-Nenets region (Northwestern Siberia) where dogs from the Iron Age period (∼2,000 y ago) possess substantially less ancestry related to European and Steppe dogs than dogs from the medieval period (∼1,000 y ago). Combined with findings of nonlocal materials recovered from these archaeological sites, including glass beads and metal items, these results indicate that Northwest Siberian communities were connected to a larger trade network through which they acquired genetically distinctive dogs from other regions. These exchanges were part of a series of major societal changes, including the rise of large-scale reindeer pastoralism ∼800 y ago.

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Dog body size in Siberia and the Russian Far East and its implications

Cited by 12 publications

References 75 publications

The evolution of dog diet and foraging: Insights from archaeological canids in Siberia

The evolution of dog diet and foraging: Insights from archaeological canids in Siberia

Dog size and variability in the Late Eneolithic: Drilled teeth from Corded Ware graves in Bohemia

Modern Siberian dog ancestry was shaped by several thousand years of Eurasian-wide trade and human dispersal

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