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Archaeologists working in Mexico recently claimed evidence for pre-Last Glacial Maximum human occupation in the Americas, based on lithic items excavated from Chiquihuite Cave, Zacatecas. Although ...

Various chronologies of the earliest Native American occupations have been proposed with varying levels of empirical support and conceptual rigor, yet none is widely accepted. A recent survey of pr...

The grey wolf (Canis lupus) was the first species to give rise to a domestic population, and they remained widespread throughout the last Ice Age when many other large mammal species went extinct. Little is known, however, about the history and possible extinction of past wolf populations or when and where the wolf progenitors of the present-day dog lineage (Canis familiaris) lived1–8. Here we analysed 72 ancient wolf genomes spanning the last 100,000 years from Europe, Siberia and North America. We found that wolf populations were highly connected throughout the Late Pleistocene, with levels of differentiation an order of magnitude lower than they are today. This population connectivity allowed us to detect natural selection across the time series, including rapid fixation of mutations in the gene IFT88 40,000–30,000 years ago. We show that dogs are overall more closely related to ancient wolves from eastern Eurasia than to those from western Eurasia, suggesting a domestication process in the east. However, we also found that dogs in the Near East and Africa derive up to half of their ancestry from a distinct population related to modern southwest Eurasian wolves, reflecting either an independent domestication process or admixture from local wolves. None of the analysed ancient wolf genomes is a direct match for either of these dog ancestries, meaning that the exact progenitor populations remain to be located. © 2022, The Author(s). 8028-00005B; IP DKRVO 2019-2023, MK000094862; 220457/Z/20/Z, ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD, ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM; 075-15-2021-1069; European Molecular Biology Organization, EMBO: 217223/Z/19/Z; Vallee Foundation; Velux Fonden; Wellcome Trust, WT; Francis Crick Institute, FCI: FC001595; Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, H2020: 796877; Medical Research Council, MRC; Natural Environment Research Council, NERC: 210119/Z/18/Z, NE/K003259/1, NE/K005243/1, NE/S00078X/1, NE/S007067/1; Cancer Research UK, CRUK; European Research Council, ERC: 852558; Grantová Agentura České Republiky, GA ČR: 15-06446S; Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas: 2018-01640; Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse; Vetenskapsrådet, VR: 681396, BELSPO B2/191/P2/ICHIE; Russian Science Foundation, RSF: 16-18-10265-RNF, 20-17-00033, 21-18-00457-RNF, 310763; Science for Life Laboratory, SciLifeLab; Narodowa Agencja Wymiany Akademickiej, NAWA: PPN/PPO/2018/1/00037 This work was supported by grants to P. Skoglund from the European Research Council (grant no. 852558), the Erik Philip Sörensen Foundation and the Science for Life Laboratory, Swedish Biodiversity Program, made available by support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. A.B., L.S., P. Swali and P. Skoglund were supported by Francis Crick Institute core funding (FC001595) from Cancer Research UK, the UK Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. P. Skoglund was also supported by the Vallee Foundation, the European Molecular Biology Organisation and the Wellcome Trust (217223/Z/19/Z). Computations were supported by SNIC-UPPMAX. We also acknowledge support from Science for Life Laboratory, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the National Genomics Infrastructure funded by the Swedish Research Council and the Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science for assistance with massively parallel sequencing and access to the UPPMAX computational infrastructure. We thank the Yukon gold mining community and First Nations, including the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, for continued support of our palaeontology research in the Yukon Territories, Canada. We thank the Danish National High-Throughput Sequencing Centre and BGI-Europe for assistance in sequencing data generation and the Danish National Supercomputer for Life Sciences–Computerome ( https://computerome.dtu.dk ) for computational resources. We thank National Museum Wales for continued sampling support. M. Germonpré acknowledges support from the Brain.be 2.0 ICHIE project (BELSPO B2/191/P2/ICHIE). M.T.P.G. was supported by the European Research Council (grant no. 681396). M.-H.S.S. was supported by the Velux Foundations through the Qimmeq Project, the Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond and the Independent Research Fund Denmark (8028-00005B). L.D. acknowledges support from FORMAS (2018-01640). D.W.G.S. received funding for this project from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 796877. M.P. was supported by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange–NAWA (grant no. PPN/PPO/2018/1/00037). V.J.S. was supported by the University of Zurich’s University Research Priority Program ‘Evolution in Action: From Genomes to Ecosystems’. This research was done with the participation of ZIN RAS (grant no. 075-15-2021-1069). We are grateful to the museum of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology UB RAS (Ekaterinburg, Russia) for provision of samples. R.P.J. and C.O’D. were supported by the Standing Committee for Archaeology of the Royal Irish Academy through the Archaeological Excavation Research Grant Scheme. E.Y.P., P.N. and V.V.P. are supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 16-18-10265-RNF and 21-18-00457-RNF). Y.V.K. was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 20-17-00033). M.H. was supported by the European Research Council (consolidator grant GeneFlow no. 310763). M.L.-G. was supported by the Czech Science Foundation GAČR (grant no. 15-06446S) and institutional financing of the Moravian Museum from the Czech Ministry of Culture (IP DKRVO 2019-2023, MK000094862). L.S. is supported by the Sir Henry Wellcome fellowship (220457/Z/20/Z). We thank Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart for sample access. L.F. and G.L. were supported by European Research Council grants (ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM) and Natural Environmental Research Council grants (NE/K005243/1, NE/K003259/1, NE/S007067/1 and NE/S00078X/1). L.F. was also supported by the Wellcome Trust (210119/Z/18/Z). This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust (FC001595). For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC-BY public copyright licence to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission.

Objective Describe pathological features on internal and external aspects of the skull of an ancient grey wolf. Materials Wolf remains that were found at the southwestern settlement Area A of Gravettian site Pavlov I. Methods Visual observation and description; microcomputed tomography; porosity and fragmentation indices for internal and external skull features; histological section of the fourth upper premolar tooth. Results Dorsally, the sagittal crest revealed bone healing and remodeling. The sagittal lesion differential diagnosis was blunt trauma with or without fracture. Ventrally, otic region pathology included severe proliferation and lysis (osteomyelitis). The pathology was not resolvable among differential (microbial) causes of osteomyelitis, although other potential etiologies were ruled out. Conclusions Probable first report of otic region osteomyelitis in an ancient grey wolf. Significance The proximity of the wolf remains to human-related findings, and presence of red ochre and shells, suggest human involvement in the burial. Limitations This is a single specimen with differential diagnoses that were not resolvable to a single definitive diagnosis. Suggestions for Further Research Further investigation of the possible anthropological significance of the burial circumstances.

Advances in the isolation and sequencing of ancient DNA have begun to reveal the population histories of both people and dogs. Over the last 10,000 y, the genetic signatures of ancient dog remains have been linked with known human dispersals in regions such as the Arctic and the remote Pacific. It is suspected, however, that this relationship has a much deeper antiquity, and that the tandem movement of people and dogs may have begun soon after the domestication of the dog from a gray wolf ancestor in the late Pleistocene. Here, by comparing population genetic results of humans and dogs from Siberia, Beringia, and North America, we show that there is a close correlation in the movement and divergences of their respective lineages. This evidence places constraints on when and where dog domestication took place. Most significantly, it suggests that dogs were domesticated in Siberia by ∼23,000 y ago, possibly while both people and wolves were isolated during the harsh climate of the Last Glacial Maximum. Dogs then accompanied the first people into the Americas and traveled with them as humans rapidly dispersed into the continent beginning ∼15,000 y ago.

Significance The Siberian Arctic has witnessed numerous societal changes since the first known appearance of dogs in the region ∼10,000 years ago. These changes include the introduction of ironworking ∼2,000 years ago and the emergence of reindeer pastoralism ∼800 years ago. The analysis of 49 ancient dog genomes reveals that the ancestry of Arctic Siberia dogs shifted over the last 2,000 years due to an influx of dogs from the Eurasian Steppe and Europe. Combined with genomic data from humans and archaeological evidence, our results suggest that though the ancestry of human populations in Arctic Siberia did not change over this period, people there participated in trade with distant communities that involved both dogs and material culture., Dogs have been essential to life in the Siberian Arctic for over 9,500 y, and this tight link between people and dogs continues in Siberian communities. Although Arctic Siberian groups such as the Nenets received limited gene flow from neighboring groups, archaeological evidence suggests that metallurgy and new subsistence strategies emerged in Northwest Siberia around 2,000 y ago. It is unclear if the Siberian Arctic dog population was as continuous as the people of the region or if instead admixture occurred, possibly in relation to the influx of material culture from other parts of Eurasia. To address this question, we sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 20 ancient and historical Siberian and Eurasian Steppe dogs. Our analyses indicate that while Siberian dogs were genetically homogenous between 9,500 to 7,000 y ago, later introduction of dogs from the Eurasian Steppe and Europe led to substantial admixture. This is clearly the case in the Iamal-Nenets region (Northwestern Siberia) where dogs from the Iron Age period (∼2,000 y ago) possess substantially less ancestry related to European and Steppe dogs than dogs from the medieval period (∼1,000 y ago). Combined with findings of nonlocal materials recovered from these archaeological sites, including glass beads and metal items, these results indicate that Northwest Siberian communities were connected to a larger trade network through which they acquired genetically distinctive dogs from other regions. These exchanges were part of a series of major societal changes, including the rise of large-scale reindeer pastoralism ∼800 y ago.

Morphological and morphometric bone variation between archaeological wolves and the oldest domestic dogs commonly are used to define species differences. However, reference data often have been based on small numbers, without robust statistical support. We consulted the literature on these matters in all possible languages and tested many of the proposed species differences by examining wolf and dog skeletons from several collections, accompanied by an extensive synthesis of existing literature. We thus created large reference groups, assessing data distributions and variability. We examined mandible height, width, length, and convexity; contact points of the skull on a horizontal plane; caudal shifting of the border of the hard palate; skull size; carnassials tooth size reduction; micro-anatomical differences in teeth, snout, and skull height; and snout length and width. Our results show that skull length and related size; skull height; snout width; orbital angle; P4 and M1 mesio-distal diameter can help (albeit to a limited extent) to distinguish the oldest archaeological dogs from wolves. Based on our observations, we re-evaluated recent large Pleistocene canids reported as Paleolithic dogs and concluded instead that they fit well within the morphomentric distributions seen with Pleistocene wolves. The research presented here reflects the recent trend to critically re-evaluate axiomatic assumptions about wolf-dog differences, and to rephrase the morphological and morphometric definition of an early archaeological dog in a more suitable manner. These results are important to the international archaeological community because they place historical reports in a newer context, and create a robust (although narrow) framework for further evaluation of archaeological dogs and wolves.

Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America1, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae2,3, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. Acknowledgements We thank the staff at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Cincinnati Museum Center, Danish Zoological Museum, Harrison Zoological Museum, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, Idaho Museum of Natural History, Institute of Archaeology (Russian Academy of Sciences), Institute of Systematics and Animal Ecology (Russian Academy of Sciences), Institute of Zoology (Chinese Academy of Sciences), Instituto de Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, Kansas Museum of Natural History, La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, Ludwig Maximilian University, McClung Museum, Museum of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology (Russian Academy of Sciences), Museum national d’Histoire naturelle, National Museums Scotland, Natural History Museum London, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Naturhistorisches Museum Bern, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Swedish Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, SYLVATROP, US Bureau of Reclamation, University of California Museum of Paleontology, University of Texas at El Paso, University of Washington Burke Museum and the Zoological Institute (Russian Academy of Sciences; state assignment no. АААА-А19-119032590102-7) for access to specimens in their care; T. Barnosky, S. Bray, A. Farrell, R. Fischer, A. Harris, J. Harris, A. Henrici, P. Holroyd, R. MacPhee, T. Martin, A. Philpot, J. Saunders, J. Southon, G. Storrs, G. Takeuchi, X. Wang and C. Widga for assistance; and L. DeSantis for comments. A.M. used computational and storage services associated with the Hoffman2 Shared Cluster provided by UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education’s Research Technology Group. DireGWC was sequenced using the Vincent J. Coates Genomics Sequencing Laboratory at UC Berkeley, supported by NIH S10 OD018174 Instrumentation Grant. We acknowledge the assistance of the Danish National High-Throughput Sequencing Centre, BGI-Europe, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) Cancer Genomics Facility for assistance in Illumina and BGIseq500 data generation. A.R.P. was supported by a Marie Curie COFUND Junior Research Fellowship (Durham University). A.M. was supported by an NSF grant (award number: 1457106) and the QCB Collaboratory Postdoctoral Fellowship (UCLA). L.A.F.F., J.H., A.H.-B. and G.L. were supported by either European Research Council grant (ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM) and/or Natural Environmental Research Council grants (NE/K005243/1 and NE/K003259/1). K.S. was supported by a grant from Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. A.T.O. was supported by the Strategic Initiative Funds, Office of the President, Arizona State University to the Institute of Human Origins DNA and Human Origins at Arizona State University project. L.A.F.F. was supported by a Junior Research Fellowship (Wolfson College, University of Oxford) and L.A.F.F. and A. Carmagnini were supported by the Wellcome Trust (210119/Z/18/Z). S.G. was supported by Carlsbergfondet grant CF14–0995 and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant 655732-WhereWolf. M.T.P.G. was supported by ERC Consolidator grant 681396-Extinction Genomics. B.S. and J.K. were supported by IMLS MG-30-17-0045-17 and NSF DEB-1754451. A.H.-B. was supported by the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2017-315). A. Cooper, K.J.M. and H.H. were supported by the Australian Research Council. A.T.S. and G.G. were supported by Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarships. A.T.L. was supported by the Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Y.V.K. was supported by the by State Assignment of the Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy.

Shotgun metagenomics applied to archaeological feces (paleofeces) can bring new insights into the composition and functions of human and animal gut microbiota from the past. However, paleofeces often undergo physical distortions in archaeological sediments, making their source species difficult to identify on the basis of fecal morphology or microscopic features alone. Here we present a reproducible and scalable pipeline using both host and microbial DNA to infer the host source of fecal material. We apply this pipeline to newly sequenced archaeological specimens and show that we are able to distinguish morphologically similar human and canine paleofeces, as well as non-fecal sediments, from a range of archaeological contexts. This work was supported by the US National Institutes of Health R01GM089886 (to Christina Warinner and Cecil Lewis), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft EXC 2051 #390713860 (to Christina Warinner), and the Max Planck Society. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Lineage losses for man's best friend Dogs have been present in North America for at least 9000 years. To better understand how present-day breeds and populations reflect their introduction to the New World, Ní Leathlobhair et al. sequenced the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes of ancient dogs (see the Perspective by Goodman and Karlsson). The earliest New World dogs were not domesticated from North American wolves but likely originated from a Siberian ancestor. Furthermore, these lineages date back to a common ancestor that coincides with the first human migrations across Beringia. This lineage appears to have been mostly replaced by dogs introduced by Europeans, with the primary extant lineage remaining as a canine transmissible venereal tumor. Science , this issue p. 81 ; see also p. 27

This paper combines complex archaeological records from excavations of sandstone rockshelters with paleobotanical investigations in the adjacent wetlands of Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic. Several pollen diagramms from nearby peatbogs are used to document the paleoenvironmental development from the Late Glacial to the Middle Holocene. In addition, two recently excavated key archaeological sections were selected to document human behavioral responses to the climatic development: Kostelni rokle, and Smolný kamen. This region remained mostly unsettled during the Upper Paleolithic (Magdalenian or Epigravettian) so that the Late Paleolithic colonization after the LGM appears to be a major behavioral adaptation. The Early and Middle Mesolithic foragers developed this pattern to be optimally adapted to the versatile landscape of sandstone plateaus and canyons during the Holocene. The aim was to exploit its changing vegetational, aquatic and terrestric faunal resources, until the Late Mesolithic.

This chapter explores the role of hunting dogs in forager groups and as the advent of animal biotechnology. It outlines the ways in which dogs can be used as hunting biotechnology, how dogs can be incorporated into existing subsistence models, and how we can identify hunting dogs in the archaeological record. The analysis of cross-cultural utilization of dogs as a hunting tool in the ethnographic and ethnohistoric record is used to suggest insights into the ways dogs may have been utilized as a hunting adaptation by people in the past. Similarly, cost-benefit analyses employed for non-living tools, such as lithics, are employed to contextualize dogs as a quantifiable technology within optimal foraging models.

Ancient parasite studies depend on the recovery of parasite remains from archaeological material. Collection strategies, sample processing, and the use of parasitological techniques are essential to perform the analyses without loss of microremains and also to interpret the data obtained by correlating with the archaeological information. Together with the methods of analyses, the identification and differentiation between these microremains and others commonly observed in the processed samples, such as pollen grains, plant spores, fungi spores, and others, are essential so that no misdiagnosis occurs, resulting in misinterpretation of the health situation of an ancient population. All ancient parasite studies require an evaluation and discussion of taphonomy, based on the factors identified in each archaeological site. Paleoparasitology does not only require the identification of parasite remains in samples, but it involves a set of strategies, meticulous training, and application of multiple concepts in order to clarify the infection/disease process in ancient populations. In this chapter, the importance of paleoparasitology is discussed, and strategies and recommendations on sample collection, sample processing, use of parasitological techniques, and researcher training are presented. Taphonomic aspects related to experimental studies in specific sites are discussed. This chapter aims to orient those interested in the field and guide the community toward establishing principles of preservation applicable in all types of archaeological remains in which eggs can be recovered.

Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Palaeo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Palaeo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a secondary pre-contact migration of dogs distinct from Palaeo-Inuit dogs, and probably aided the Inuit expansion across the North American Arctic beginning around 1000 BP. Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Palaeo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Palaeo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a secondary pre-contact migration of dogs distinct from Palaeo-Inuit dogs, and probably aided the Inuit expansion across the North American Arctic beginning around 1000 BP.

International audience; The ritual human burials and scattered fragments of human bones excavated from Dolni Vestonice II and Pavlov I (Czech Republic) in the 20th century provide a large body of evidence on morphology and funerary practices in the Gravettian as well as the population history of European Homo sapiens during the Upper Palaeolithic. A series of radiocarbon dates on charcoal and animal bone places the occupation of the sites predominantly between 31,000-29,000 cal BP (Early-Evolved Pavlovian) but direct radiocarbon dating of the human remains has not been previously undertaken. In 2013, human bones from Dolni Vestonice II and Pavlov I were sampled for aDNA analysis, including three skeletons from a triple burial (DV13, DV14, DV15), two skeletons from single burials (Pav1, DV16) and two unarticulated human bones (DV42, DV43). Small amounts of bone material were left over from the aDNA sampling, providing the first opportunity to directly date seven of the human individuals. Non-destructive pre-screening with near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy indicated that sufficient collagen was preserved in the bone material for radiocarbon dating. We sampled very small amounts (32-202 mg) of bone material for collagen extraction, ultrafiltration and accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) dating. Each collagen extract was dated multiple times using both graphite targets (ca. 800 mu g C) and the gas ion source (< 100 mu g C) of the AixMICADAS to obtain accurate and precise radiocarbon ages. The direct dates confirm the Pavlovian origin of the human remains and indicate that several of the radiocarbon dates carried out in the 1980s on associated charcoals were likely affected by low-level contamination of modern carbon. The results add seven individuals to the small collection of reliably dated Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe.

The study of fossil parasites can provide insight into the antiquity of host–parasite relationships and the origins and evolution of these paleoparasites. Here, a coprolite (fossilized feces) from the 1.2-million-yr-old paleontological site of Haro River Quarry in northwestern Pakistan was analyzed for paleoparasites. Micromorphological thin sectioning and Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) analysis confirms the coprolite belonged to a bone-eating carnivore, likely the extinct giant short-faced hyena (Pachycrocuta brevirostris). Parasitological analysis shows the coprolite to be positive for Toxocara sp. To our knowledge, this is the earliest evidence for Toxocara sp. found.

Was the use of hunting dogs an adaptation to the post-glacial deciduous forest environment in the northern temperate zone? Dog burials in Jomon Japan appear closely associated with a specific environment and with a related subsistence economy involving the hunting of forest ungulates such as sika deer and wild boar. Dogs were valued as important hunting technology, able to track and retrieve wounded animals in difficult, forested environments, or holding them until the hunter made the final kill. Greater numbers of dog burials during the later Jomon phases may reflect a growing dependence on hunting dogs to extract ungulate prey from forests in an increasingly resource-strained seasonal environment.

The process and timing of initial dog domestication is an important topic in human evolution and one which has inspired much recent debate. Findings of putative domesticated dogs have recently been reported from two Gravettian sites by Germonpre et al. (2015a), joining a handful of other reputed “Paleolithic dogs” dating to before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Though these findings have been challenged previously, this paper draws attention to the most significant shortcoming in claims of early domesticated dogs – a lack of data on Pleistocene wolf variation. Without comprehensive data on the range of variation within Pleistocene wolf populations, the identification of domesticated dogs from prior to the Late Upper Paleolithic cannot be conclusively accepted or rejected.

The domestication of dogs likely occurred in Eurasia by 16,000 years ago, and the initial peopling of the Americas potentially happened around the same time. Dogs were long thought to have accompanied the first migrations into the Americas, but conclusive evidence for Paleoindian dogs is lacking. In this study, the direct dating of two dogs from the Koster site (Greene County, Illinois) and a newly described dog from the Stilwell II site (Pike County, Illinois) to between 10,190 and 9,630 cal BP represents the earliest confirmed evidence of domestic dogs in the Americas and individual dog burials anywhere in the world. Analysis of these animals shows Early Archaic dogs were medium sized, lived active lifestyles, and exhibited significant morphological variation. Stable isotope analyses suggest diets dominated by terrestrial C3resources and substantial consumption of riverine fish.

Archaeoparasitology is increasingly being used as a tool in archaeological research to investigate relationships between past humans, environments, diets and disease. It can be particularly useful in contexts where parasite eggs preserve, but human and faunal remains do not, including in the identification of disease and/or dietary items otherwise absent from the local archaeological record. We analyzed soil samples from the Late Mesolithic layers of the lake island site of Derragh in County Longford, Ireland. All samples were positive for the presence of Diphyllobothrium sp., an intestinal fish tapeworm that infects humans, causing diphyllobothriasis. Though fish are thought to be a staple food in Mesolithic Ireland, evidence for fishing and subsistence from this period is extremely fragmentary. Similarly, there is little available evidence for disease, primarily due to the lack of human remains. This finding represents the earliest known presence of human-derived parasites in Ireland, the earliest known finding of Diphyllobothrium sp. in Europe and the only finding of the tapeworm from hunter-gatherer contexts. It suggests parasitic infections, particularly those resulting from undercooked food, may be more common in ancient hunter-gatherer populations than previously suspected. The presence of these zoonotic parasites at hunter-gatherer sites can provide important insight into local environments, health and disease, and culinary practices. In locations like Mesolithic Ireland, the presence of parasites may assist in the identification of subsistence activities, such as fishing, and specific prey.

1. IntroductionThe idea of “mammoth megasites” during the Gravettian andEpigravettianhaslongbeenacontroversialtopicamongresearchers,with debate over whether they are the result of natural deaths orspecialized human hunting (Haynes, 1991; Soffer et al., 2001;Svoboda et al., 2005). From the same time period there is alsomuchdisagreementaboutthepresenceofpossibledomesticateddogremains, representing initial domestication event(s) across Eurasia.In her recent paper, Shipman (2015) considers these two topics,suggestingtheproliferationofmammothremainsfromanumberofEurasian sites is the result of human hunting, while also suggestingthe hunting of these mammoths was facilitated by the assistance ofsome form of early domesticated dog (referred to as “wolf dogs”).While we strongly support additional research into the issues ofmammoth megasites and initial dog domestication, the evidencepresented by Shipman fails to support the conclusions made. Here,we present issues with the taphonomic considerations, mammothage profiles, and the proposed domesticated canid hypothesis.2. Taphonomic considerationsBefore the age-at-death profiles from mammoth teeth can beused for meaningful statements about behavior, the overall contextof theseassemblages must,andshould, be considered.Taphonomicand site formation history has not been discussed by Shipman insufficientenoughdetailtoascertainthetimingandfunctionofeachof these sites, especially since many appear to have had serveddifferent functions (Bosch, 2012; see also Smith, 2015). Defleshedmammoth bones might have been gathered as raw material fortools andornaments,orasbuildingmaterial(e.g.Sofferetal.,2001;Niven, 2006), as has been suggested for Predmosti and Milovice(Musil, 1968; Brugere and Fontana, 2009). For example, extensivegeoarchaeological work has shown that the Berelekh mammothbone bed, which Shipman has suggested may be an example of‘repeated, non-selective hunting’ (page 3), actually consists of aseries of natural deposits unrelated to the Berelekh archaeologicalsite, though the human occupants later exploited the raw materialas a resource (Pitulko, 2011; see also Pitulko et al., 2014).The mammoth age profiles and open-air exposure of these sitessuggest that faunal assemblages from these localities reflect time-averaged palimpsests, perhaps resulting from single kill eventsand a repeated accumulation of faunal material at these locations(e.g. Bosch, 2012; Smith, 2012). Haynes (1991) discussed variationbetween age profiles, particularly between palimpsest and livepopulations, noting that even though two profiles may appearsimilar, their “meaning” may reflect the opposite. Alongside thetime-averaged quality of many of the faunal assemblages, Shipman(2015) does not provide a structured and detailed taphonomicanalysis in support of the model proposed by the mammoth ageprofiles. The paper has not considered the depth and range of timerepresentedateachofthesesitesandwhetheranalogousanalyticalunits are actually being compared. Failing to contextualize ageprofiles from teeth alongside the survival of postcranial elementsprevents a more accurate assessment of either selective transportordestruction,orboth.Whilequantityofpost-cranialmaterialmaybe reduced (compared to dental fragments), these portions couldprovide useful taphonomic data about seasonal use of sites andwhether the mammoth assemblage may have suffered some formofpreorpost-depositionaldisturbance.Thoughmammothremainsundoubtedly dominate these sites, a useful comparative perspec-tive could be gleaned from considering the other fauna from thesesites; in particular the proportion of canids to other carnivores.Indeed, given the importance of “wolf dogs” for this model, it iscurious that no information was provided in terms of the propor-tion and distribution of carnivore modifications. Without data ontaphonomic agents, including human and carnivore modifications,it is difficult to compare and contrast the assemblages in themanner presented by Shipman.3. Mammoth age-at-death profilesAs Shipman states, statistical evaluation of the data onmammoth age-at-death profiles is needed, however there seem tobe some issues with the raw data and statistical tests presented inthe original paper. No raw data is provided for the numbers of

The function of prehistoric dogs in hunting is not readily visible in the archaeological record; interpretations are thus heavily reliant on ethnographic data and remain controversial. Here we document the earliest evidence for dogs on the Arabian Peninsula from rock art at the sites of Shuwaymis and Jubbah, in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Hunting scenes depicted in the rock art illustrate dog-assisted hunting strategies from the 7th and possibly the 8th millennium BC, predating the spread of pastoralism. Though the depicted dogs are reminiscent of the modern Canaan dog, it remains unclear if they were brought to the Arabian Peninsula from the Levant or represent an independent domestication of dogs from Arabian wolves. A substantial dataset of 147 hunting scenes shows dogs partaking in a range of hunting strategies based on the environment and topography of each site, perhaps minimizing subsistence risk via hunting intensification in areas with extreme seasonal fluctuations. Particularly notable is the inclusion of leashes on some dogs, the earliest known evidence in prehistory. The leashing of dogs not only shows a high level of control over hunting dogs before the onset of the Neolithic, but also that some dogs performed different hunting tasks than others.

Dietary reconstruction via stable isotope analysis is an important part of the study of past populations, but can raise issues in many parts of the world where human remains are scarce, absent, or restricted due to ethical concerns. Given these issues, some researchers have used domesticated dogs as human dietary proxies via the Canine Surrogacy Approach (CSA). We performed carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis on the hair of 304 humans and 57 dogs from 45 households in two contemporary indigenous communities in Nicaragua’s Bosawas Biosphere Reserve to explore whether dogs function as dietary proxies for their human owners in this Neotropical horticulturalist context. While CSA is broadly viable at these study sites, on a more precise scale the diets of dogs do not reflect the diets of their owners. This raises questions about the applicability of CSA to archaeological contexts, suggesting that relying on dogs as dietary proxies may overlook key variation in past human diets.

A dogged investigation of domestication The history of how wolves became our pampered pooches of today has remained controversial. Frantz et al. describe high-coverage sequencing of the genome of an Irish dog from the Bronze Age as well as ancient dog mitochondrial DNA sequences. Comparing ancient dogs to a modern worldwide panel of dogs shows an old, deep split between East Asian and Western Eurasian dogs. Thus, dogs were domesticated from two separate wolf populations on either side of the Old World. Science , this issue p. 1228

OBJECTIVES We measured carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios in a contemporary population, and tested how the isotopic variability relates to measures of socioeconomic status (e.g., household wealth) and anthropometric measures (e.g., standardized height-for-age and weight-for-age z-scores). METHODS Hair samples from individuals living in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua were analyzed for δ13 C and δ15 N, and these data were examined in relation to individual (e.g., age, sex, anthropometrics) and household (e.g., household size, wealth) variables. RESULTS We found through mixed-effects modeling that δ13 C and δ15 N varied predictably with individual age and household wealth. δ13 C and δ15 N did not, however, improve models predicting variation in individual anthropometric measures. CONCLUSION These results indicate that, although there is a relationship between diet (δ13 C and δ15 N) and socioeconomic variables, these dietary differences are not the main cause of health differences in this population.

Domestication is the result of a complex interplay of both biological and cultural processes. The mechanism underlying today’s variety of domesticates has long sparked the interest of researchers but has always been difficult to define. While dogs (Canis familiaris) are now firmly established as the earliest domesticated animal, most questions about their domestication are still unresolved, including the location, the timing, and the potential drivers of domestication. Genetic evidence accumulated over the last 20 years unequivocally identified Canis lupus—a gray wolf—as the species giving rise to all modern dogs and suggested locations including Eastern Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe as potential domestication origins. Inferences about the timing of dog domestication are equally controversial. A date in the latest Upper Paleolithic, between 15,000 and 12,000 years ago, has long been the accepted timing of domestication due to clear archaeological evidence of morphologically distinct modern dogs by this time, and more recent genetic findings have confirmed the onset of dog domestication in the Late Pleistocene. In order to disentangle the complexity and thus derive a comprehensive understanding of dog domestication, we need to develop evolutionary models that include all available evidence from archaeology, morphology, and genetics. While time travel is still fiction and studying domestication at the moment of action impossible, paleogenomic approaches provide intriguing prospects and necessary means to decipher the many facets of domestication and deliver such evidence. Consequently, recent paleogenomic work has proposed a dual domestication process in Europe and Eastern Asia, which might be a first step toward reconciling some of the previous divergent conclusions.

International audience; The Upper Pleistocene in the north of France is characterised by discontinuous human presence, closely linked to climatic fluctuations. Human groups were mainly present during the Eemian interglacial and at the beginning of the Weichselian glacial period, as well as during the Late Glacial, in correlation with large mammal populations. Upper Pleistocene climatic fluctuations impacted on raw material access, which partly conditioned lithic productionmodalities. However, the influence of cultural traditions remains important, both for lithic production and subsistence strategies.