Anthropology

Interpretations of dog burials made by ancient foraging groups have tended to be based upon our own relationships with such animals and modern western cosmological and ontological concepts. Osteological studies of early dogs often focus only on issues of taxonomy, and as a result very little is known about
these animals’ life histories. Eastern Siberia has produced many Holocene dog burials, but these are typically not well described and the explanatory frameworks provided for them are very underdeveloped. Here we examine in detail two Cis-Baikal canid burials, one of a wolf and the other a dog, both in large
Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer cemeteries. We link the mortuary treatment of these animals to other cultural practices, particularly the treatment of the human dead, and broader patterns in Northern human-animal relationships. This interpretive model is combined with detailed osteobiographies for the canids and contextual information for these and other dogs and wolves from Middle Holocene Cis-Baikal. It is argued that canids here were understood and treated in a variety of ways. We suggest that some animals with unique histories were known as distinct persons with ‘souls’ and because of this at
death required mortuary rites similar to those of their human counterparts.

Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia is one of the largest and deepest freshwater lakes in the world, and its
diverse fauna were extensively utilized by local human populations over many millennia. The regional
culture history models primarily are based on radiocarbon dates on human skeletal remains, and in some
cases, also on dates on sediments from habitation sites. Analyses of a set of 113 radiocarbon dates from
the Sagan-Zaba Holocene hunter-gatherer and pastoralist habitation site (52.6825
N, 106.4760
E) on the
western coast of Lake Baikal demonstrates two critical problems in the dating of these sets of materials.
First, comparison of AMS radiocarbon dates on terrestrial mammal and Baikal seal bones from Sagan-
Zaba reveals the existence of a freshwater radiocarbon offset in the seal remains of at least 700 radiocarbon
years. Radiocarbon dates on skeletal remains from humans who consumed the aquatic fauna also
should be expected to carry an old carbon offset. Second, comparison of radiocarbon dates made on
sediment samples with those made on terrestrial mammal bones demonstrates major inconsistencies.
The primary problem with these samples is that the carbon being dated in them is of unclear relationship
to human activities of interest at the site. Therefore, the still common practice in this region of radiocarbon
dating sediments to establish archaeological chronologies should be abandoned. The AMS
radiocarbon dating of bone from species which clearly fed outside of Lake Baikal’s aquatic environments
should provide more reliable age estimates for human activities at archaeological sites.

The first objective of this study is to examine temporal patterns in ancient dog burials in the Lake Baikal region of Eastern
Siberia. The second objective is to determine if the practice of dog burial here can be correlated with patterns in human
subsistence practices, in particular a reliance on terrestrial mammals. Direct radiocarbon dating of a suite of the region’s dog
remains indicates that these animals were given burial only during periods in which human burials were common. Dog
burials of any kind were most common during the Early Neolithic (,7–8000 B.P.), and rare during all other time periods.
Further, only foraging groups seem to have buried canids in this region, as pastoralist habitation sites and cemeteries
generally lack dog interments, with the exception of sacrificed animals. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data indicate
that dogs were only buried where and when human diets were relatively rich in aquatic foods, which here most likely
included river and lake fish and Baikal seal (Phoca sibirica). Generally, human and dog diets appear to have been similar
across the study subregions, and this is important for interpreting their radiocarbon dates, and comparing them to those
obtained on the region’s human remains, both of which likely carry a freshwater old carbon bias. Slight offsets were
observed in the isotope values of dogs and humans in our samples, particularly where both have diets rich in aquatic fauna.
This may result from dietary differences between people and their dogs, perhaps due to consuming fish of different sizes, or
even different tissues from the same aquatic fauna. This paper also provides a first glimpse of the DNA of ancient canids in
Northeast Asia.

Previously developed regression formulae for estimating body mass in dogs and wolves based on cranial and mandibular dimensions are evaluated using modern canid specimens of known weight at death. Some of these equations proved reliable, but others have large standard errors of estimate and likely produce unreliable mass estimates. New sets of equations for estimating body mass in dogs and wolves are produced using our datasets, including a set of equations developed from combining the dog and wolf biometric data into a single population. The resulting regression equations allow body mass to be estimated from a series of cranial and mandibular dimensions with relatively low errors. Further, our datasets include larger numbers of specimens of larger ranges of body mass than in these previous studies. When the equations are applied to a suite of dogs and one wolf from Eastern Siberia, several patterns emerge. First, hunter-gatherers' dogs in this region vary widely in terms of body size, even within a limited geographic area and time period. Some were quite large, similar in size to modern Siberian huskies. Second, pastoralists' dogs are less variable in terms of body mass, but this may reflect the nature of our samples. In particular, pastoralists' dogs nearly all were sacrificed juvenile dogs, some of which appear to have been eaten. These dogs seem to have been approach adult body size when they were selected for sacrifice. Finally, our findings help to highlight the need for further refinement in methods used to study ancient canid remains. Archaeologists are asking increasingly complex questions about interactions between humans and domesticated animals. Such questions focus not just on the origins and dispersals of domesticates, but also on the various ways humans affected the life courses of their cohabitant species, and how these animals shaped human lives and societies. To address such questions, new and refined methodologies are being developed, many of which are designed to better document an animal's life history and basic physical characteristics. These approaches to the study of animal remains are borrowed in part from human osteology, which as a discipline has a suite of increasingly refined methods at its disposal. Such methods can generate details on a human's body size and form, diet, history of disease and trauma, and repetitive activities, and many of these methods have been in development for decades. Arguably, however, relatively few zooarchaeologists employ these types of methods when studying faunal remains, and for some species of interest, including dogs and wolves, life history methods remain underdeveloped and based on very small comparative datasets.

Dietary adaptations of prehistoric hunter-gatherers from Neolithic and Early Bronze Age cemeteries in the Little Sea region of Cis-Baikal (the region to the west and north of Lake Baikal) are explored using stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen. Stable isotope data, including stable carbon isotopes from bone carbonate, are presented for 22 individuals from the site of Kurma XI, dated to approximately 6500 B.P. to 4000 B.P. Data are compared to previously analyzed individuals from the larger Early Bronze Age cemetery, Khuzhir-Nuge XIV (Katzenberg et al., 2009 JAS) and to smaller sites located along the shore of the Little Sea, including sites on Olkhon Island. An extensive collection of fauna, both prehistoric and modern, from the Little Sea and neighboring regions is also analyzed for stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen. Clear distinctions are found in modern fish recovered from the Little Sea, in contrast to those from the open waters of the lake and from the neighboring Angara and Lena rivers. Considerable variation is seen in stable carbon isotope ratios from fish while stable nitrogen isotope ratios are not as variable, regardless of habitat. Isotope source modeling is used to assist in reconstructing past dietary adaptations. While there is ample evidence from other studies for cultural change over this temporal span, diet appears to have been relatively stable.

Archaeological dog remains from many areas clearly show that these animals suffered tooth fractures, tooth loss, trauma, and dental defects during their lives. Relatively little research has explored the meanings of these patterns, particularly for ancient dog remains from small-scale societies of the North. One limiting issue is the lack of comparative data on dental health and experiences of trauma among northern wolves and dogs. This paper examines tooth loss, tooth fracture, enamel hypoplasia, and cranial trauma in a large sample of historic dog and wolf remains from North America and Northern Russia. The data indicate that the dogs more commonly experienced tooth loss and tooth fracture than the wolves, despite reportedly being fed mostly soft foods such as blubber and fish. The higher rates observed in the dogs likely is a result of food stress and self-provisioning through scavenging. The ability to self-provision was likely important for the long-term history of dog use in the north. Dogs also more commonly experienced cranial fractures than wolves, particularly depression fractures on their frontal bones, which were likely the result of blows from humans. Hypoplastic lesions are rare in both wolves and dogs, and probably result from multiple causes, including food stress, disease, and trauma.

This paper examines Holocene tends in subsistence practices through the examination of archaeological faunal remains from the Bugul'deika II habitation site on the west shore of Lake Baikal, Russian Federation.
This data indicates that the primary focus of subsistence activities at the site in almost all periods was the hunting of Baikal seals (Phoca sibirica). While some deer and other fauna are represented in most cultural layers, they appear to be supplementary resources throughout the Early and Middle Holocene period of site use. By ~2900 cal. BP, domesticated ungulates appear at the site, and become increasingly more relatively abundant through time. Humans using the site during these periods also continued to use wild fauna, particularly Baikal seals. Yearlings and other juveniles were the most commonly taken seals at the site, and most were killed in the late winter or early spring when the lake was ice covered.
The overall pattern of fauna use at the site is very similar to that at other sites located on the open shoreline of Lake Baikal, but contrasts sharply with fauna use at sites located along the Little Sea shoreline of the lake, which focuses of littoral fish. Finally, while Middle Holocene human cemeteries in the study area have abundant remains of deer, and stable isotope data on human remains from them indicate some dietary reliance on such herbivores, remains of deer are not found in abundance in any
local habitation site.

We analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from ancient marmot teeth (~7550e6800 cal. BP), which were recovered during archaeological excavations of two contemporary cemeteries near Lake Baikal, Russia: one archaeological site is the Shamanka II cemetery located on the southwest shoreline of Lake Baikal,
and the other is the Lokomotiv-Raisovet cemetery located about 77 km to northwest and within the modern city of Irkutsk. Although the teeth had not been identified to species based on their morphology, our ancient DNA analysis revealed that all incisors from ten individuals were of the tarbagan marmot
(Marmota sibirica), which is currently not distributed around those archaeological sites. In contrast, the black-capped marmot (Marmota camtschatica), which also has a dominant distribution in Eastern Siberia and whose incisors are morphologically similar to M. sibirica, was not identified from our ancient tooth
samples. In addition, the mtDNA sequence variation showed that the genealogy of marmots in the Shamanka II cemetery could have been different from that of the Lokomotiv-Raisovet cemetery. These data indicate that the ancient people at the Shamanka II cemetery could have used M. sibirica from different regions than those utilized at the Lokomotiv-Raisovet site. This suggests non-overlapping marmot hunting ranges for the people buried at the two Middle Holocene cemeteries.

The article presents the results of studies of faunal remains from the Ulan-Khada multilayered settlement -one of key habitation sites in the Cis-Baikal region providing information for reconstructing environmental and cultural changes during the Holocene. A complete analysis of the fauna assemblage obtained over the course of long-term excavations is given. For the rst time, the site's ichthyofauna is described. The mammalian species composition is revised. Species diversity is evaluated across the time span from the Final Mesolithic to the Late Iron Age. These studies have demonstrated that the main activities at the site during the Neolithic and Bronze Age included seal and ungulate (roe and red deer) hunting. Fishing was also important, especially 4.2-3.8 thousand years ago (Bronze Age).