Diversity in Labrador Inuit sled dog diets: Insights from δ13C and δ15N analysis of dog bone and dentine collagen

Alison J.T Harris,Deirdre A Elliott,Eric J Guiry,Matthew Von Tersch,Lisa Rankin,Peter Whitridge,Michelle Alexander,Gunilla Eriksson,Vaughan Grimes

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102424

Abstract

Sled dogs were an integral part of Labrador Inuit life from the initial expansion and settlement of northeastern Canada to the present day. Tasked with pulling sleds and assisting people with other subsistence activities in the winter, dogs required regular provisioning with protein and fat. In this paper, we conduct stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratio analysis of the skeletal remains of dogs (n = 35) and wild fauna (n = 68) from sites located on the north and south coasts of Labrador to characterize dog provisioning between the 15th to early 19th centuries. In addition, we analyse bone (n = 20) and dentine (n = 4) collagen from dogs from Double Mer Point, a communal house site in Hamilton Inlet to investigate how dog diets intersected with Inuit subsistence and trade activities at a local level. We find that dog diets were largely composed of marine mammal protein, but that dogs on the north coast consumed more caribou and fish relative to dogs from the central and south coast sites. The diets of dogs from Double Mer Point were the most heterogenous of any site, suggesting long-distance movement of people and/or animals along the coast.

Highlights

Biomolecular approaches to the zooarchaeology of dogs, including stable isotope analysis and ancient DNA, can speak to canine population histories and human-canid relationships over the course of our shared history
We conducted δ13C and δ15N analysis on the skeletal remains of dogs from north, central and south coast sites to determine, 1) Was there geographic variation in the types of foods fed to dogs? and, 2) How did the diets of dogs at Double Mer Point compare to archaeological and zooarchaeological evidence for human subsistence activities at the site? To facilitate our interpretation of dog diets, we developed the first archaeological isotope baseline for Labrador using the skeletal remains of wild animals collected from Inuit and Basque sites
The collagen samples were prepared at four laboratories: The Memorial Applied Archaeological Science lab (MAAS) of Memorial University (MUN), the Archaeological Research Laboratory of Stockholm University (SU), BioArCh of the University of York, and at the Department of Anthropology of the University of British Columbia (UBC)

Summary

Introduction

Biomolecular approaches to the zooarchaeology of dogs, including stable isotope analysis and ancient DNA (aDNA), can speak to canine population histories and human-canid relationships over the course of our shared history. Alaskan communities of the pre-contact and modern eras provisioned dogs with salmon, a resource that could be acquired in bulk and dried (Loftus et al, 2014; McManus-Fry et al, 2018). Human-canine relationships and the position of dogs among communities of the western and central Arctic have been further examined using osteometric, archaeological, ethnographic and genetic data (Brown et al, 2013; Coltrain et al, 2004; Davydov and Klokov, 2018; Hill, 2018; Losey et al, 2018; Morrison, 1984; Park, 1987; Pitulko and Kasparov, 2017; Strecker, 2018) but to date similar research in the Eastern Arctic and Subarctic is limited in scope (Ameen et al, 2019; Woollett, 2003). Dog diets may reflect the geographic and seasonal distribution of prey resources, and the need to provision dogs with foods that could be stored and transported, or acquired while on the move

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Conclusion