The Southernmost Pre-Columbian Dogs in the Americas: Phenotype, Chronology, Diet and Genetics

LOPONTE, D; A. ACOSTA, A. GASCUE, S. PFRENGLE, V. J. SCHUENEMANN, N. BORTOLOTTO, M. CARBONERA, C. GARCÍA ESPONDA, D. VOGLINO, R. MILHEIRA, A. FERRARI Y C. BORGES

Environmental Archaeology

Editorial board

Año: 2021

1749-6314

The archaeological record shows the presence of medium-sized dogs with mesocephalic skullsin Southeast South America, from at least the end of the third millennium BP to historical times,along 700 km from southern Brazil to the wetlands of the Paraná River in Argentina. Thesedogs, associated with complex hunter-gatherers, do not appear to have been the product ofexchange with Andean societies as previous theories suggested, but rather of a localbreeding process, probably reflecting the offspring of a founder population introduced inthe area before at least the third millennium BP. Isotopic values show a C3 omnivorouspattern, resulting from a broad and opportunistic niche, not overlapping with that ofhumans. The relationships between humans and their dogs were very complex; some of thedogs were buried in mortuary areas, in double human-dog burials, meanwhile others wereused as a source of raw material. Shortly after the introduction of European dogs, they werequickly assimilated by these introduced dogs, which is supported by the pairwise distanceanalysis. Phylogenetic analysis illustrates the maternal lineage of these pre-Columbian andmodern dogs, both belonging to the haplogroup A, supporting a common ancestry.