Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond

by Darcy F. Morey

Overview

This book traces the evolution of the dog, from its origins about 15,000 years ago up to recent times. The timing of dog domestication receives attention, with comparisons between different genetics-based models and archaeological evidence. Allometric patterns between dogs and their ancestors, wolves, shed light on the nature of the morphological changes that dogs underwent. Dog burials highlight a unifying theme of the whole book: the development of a distinctive social bond between dogs and people; the book also explores why dogs and people relate so well to each other. Though cosmopolitan in overall scope, greatest emphasis is on the New World, with entire chapter devoted to dogs of the arctic regions, mostly in the New World. Discussion of several distinctive modern roles of dogs underscores the social bond between dogs and people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521757430
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/12/2010
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Darcy Morey received his Ph.D. in anthropological archaeology in 1990 from the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville. Subsequently, he spent a year as a guest researcher at the University of Copenhagen Zoological Museum in Denmark. He was there for the express purpose of studying dog remains from archaeological sites in arctic Greenland. In addition to participating in archaeological fieldwork there in 1990, he has worked in Norway, France, and Denmark, as well as numerous places in the United States. He has published actively on a variety of topics, with his work on dogs being especially prominent. On that general topic, he has published as sole or senior author many articles and book reviews in journals such as Arctic, Journal of Archaeological Science, Quarterly Review of Biology, Archaeozoologia, Current Anthropology, and Journal of Alabama Archaeology. Dr Morey has also published on the topic of dogs in popular science outlets, for example the American Scientist and La Recherche. He joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1998. There, in addition to his ongoing research activities, he was selected by students as the most notable teacher of undergraduates in his department (Anthropology) in 2000. In addition, in 2002 he was elected to the Alpha Pi chapter of Phi Beta Δ, The Honor Society for International Scholars. He resigned from the University of Kansas in 2006 and began working at the University of Tennessee, Martin.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables xi

Foreword Donald K. Grayson xv

Preface and Acknowledgments xix

1 Preamble to the Dog's Journey through Time 1

Previous Volumes about Dogs 2

This Volume about Dogs 7

2 Immediate Ancestry 12

Candidates for Dog Ancestry 14

The Genetic Near-identity of Dogs and Wolves 17

Which Wolf, or Wolves? 19

The Case of the Bonn-Oberkassel Dog 24

Other Early Possibilities 26

3 Evidence of Dog Domestication and Its Timing: Morphological and Contextual Indications 30

Allometric Patterns and Morphological Distinctions 31

Morphology, Genetics, and Domestication Timing 50

Dog Burials and Domestication Timing 53

4 Domestication of Dogs and Other Organisms 57

Historical Perspectives 57

Domestication as Evolution 67

The Domestication of the Dog 69

Why So Late? 81

The Human-Dog Domestic Relationship: Just What Is It? 83

5 The Roles of Dogs in Past Human Societies 86

Dogs as a Food Source 86

Transportation Uses 90

Dogs Used in Hunting 99

The Use of Dog Products 105

The Use of Dogs by Archaeologists 108

Closing Thoughts on the Past Uses of Dogs 111

6 Dogs of the Arctic, the Far North 112

The Arctic as a Region 112

Earliest Paleoeskimo Dogs 114

Dorset Dogs (?) 119

Thule Dogs 123

Recent Inuit Dogs 145

Closing Perspective on Thule/Inuit Dogs 148

7 The Burial of Dogs, and What Dog Burials Mean 150

Care in Burial 151

Archaic Dog Burials in the Green River Valley, Kentucky 168

The Ashkelon Phenomenon 177

Dogs and Spirituality: Beyond the Near East 183

Wolves and Spirituality 184

Cats: The Ancient Egypt Phenomenon 186

8 Why the Social Bond between Dogs and People? 188

The Relevance of Wolf Packs 189

Dogs' Behavioral and Brain Changes under Domestication 191

Auditory Communication 197

The Farm Fox Experiment 199

Why Not Foxes? 201

Dogs and Cats: A Genuine Contrast 204

Dog “Humanization” 206

9 Other Human-like Capabilities of Dogs 208

Search-and-Rescue Dogs 208

Musical Expression 214

Culture and Musical Expression 219

10 Roles of Dogs in Recent Times 226

War Dogs 227

Dogs in the Human Health Services 232

The Modern Mortuary Role of Dogs 238

Are Modern Dogs a Reliable Guide to Prehistoric Dogs? 241

Epilogue: One Dog's Journey 245

Appendix A 249

Appendix B 262

References 273

Index 349

Editorial Reviews

"Like a hound on scent, Darcy Morey pursues the dog down the twisting paths of prehistory to its wolf origins and then tracks back through the dense tangle of contemporary genetic and neurological research to show how it came to capture our homes and hearts.  [This book] is a work of love and of intellect that confirms Morey as our foremost dog archaeologist."
-Mark Derr, author, A Dog's History of America and Dog's Best Friend

From the Publisher