A new look at an old friend : a geometric morphometric approach to examining morphological diversity and investigating human-canid relationships in New World prehistory
Identifying domesticates in the archaeological record is one of the major goals of zooarchaeology, and as the first known domesticate, significant attention has been given to investigating dogs in archaeological research. Less attention has been paid to the morphological variation exhibited by prehistoric dogs after their do- mestication. Since the New World lacks the large scale husbandry of economically important livestock animals, dogs are arguably the most significant domesticate in American prehistory, and are the only domesticate shared by almost all cultures. Advances in geometric morphometric (GMM) techniques have improved our abil- ity to investigate the subtle biological variations between wild and domestic ani- mals. This thesis uses advanced GMM techniques to identify domesticates from prehistoric archaeological assemblages. These methods are then used to examine the morphological variability of dogs in New World prehistory. This post-domestic variation might inform on the diverse and fluid cultural relationships between hu- mans and the domestic dog. The results of this thesis are presented as a series of case studies which first offer a comprehensive investigation of the underlying morphological
Ameen, C. E.
A new look at an old friend : a geometric morphometric approach to examining morphological diversity and investigating human-canid relationships in New World prehistory. Identifying domesticates in the archaeological record is one of the major goals of zooarchaeology, and as the first known domesticate, significant attention has been given to investigating dogs in archaeological research. Less attention has been paid to the morphological variation exhibited by prehistoric dogs after their do- mestication. Since the New World lacks the large scale husbandry of economically important livestock animals, dogs are arguably the most significant domesticate in American prehistory, and are the only domesticate shared by almost all cultures. Advances in geometric morphometric (GMM) techniques have improved our abil- ity to investigate the subtle biological variations between wild and domestic ani- mals. This thesis uses advanced GMM techniques to identify domesticates from prehistoric archaeological assemblages. These methods are then used to examine the morphological variability of dogs in New World prehistory. This post-domestic variation might inform on the diverse and fluid cultural relationships between hu- mans and the domestic dog. The results of this thesis are presented as a series of case studies which first offer a comprehensive investigation of the underlying morphological
new look old friend geometric morphometric examine morphological diversity investigate human relationship new_world prehistory identifying domesticate archaeological_record one_major goal zooarchaeology first know domesticate significant attention_give investigate dog archaeological_research less_attention pay morphological_variation exhibit prehistoric dog since new_world lack large_scale husbandry economically important livestock animal dog arguably significant domesticate american prehistory domesticate share almost culture advances geometric morphometric techniques improve investigate subtle biological variation wild_domestic advance technique identify domesticates prehistoric archaeological_assemblage method_use examine morphological variability dog new_world prehistory post domestic variation might inform diverse fluid cultural relationship man domestic dog present_series case_study first offer_comprehensive investigation underlie morphological