Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: Implications for Isotopic Studies of Southwest Dogs

Abstract

With over 20,000 years of shared history, dogs present a unique opportunity to learn about human populations. Dogs accompany humans during migration and travel, often eating the same foods. Morphological and isotopic analyses of a Georgetown-phase dog burial provide information about diet, movement, and animal interment practices of Mimbres Mogollon people from the Kipp Site. Results indicate the animal ate a diet high in maize, retains higher δ15N than most available prehistoric human data from the Southwest, and likely moved around early in life. The Kipp dog was skinned, burned, and buried in an intentional pit, in contrast with the highly fragmentary faunal remains found in surrounding proveniences.