The human bond with dogs may have begun in the Americas as early as 12,000 years ago. Archaeological remains uncovered in Alaska push the timeline of our canine companionship back about 2,000 years earlier than previously recorded in North or South America. The findings are detailed in a study published December 4 in the journal Science Advances.
“People like me who are interested in the peopling of the Americas are very interested in knowing if those first Americans came with dogs,” study co-author and University of Arizona anthropologist François Lanoë said in a statement. “Until you find those animals in archaeological sites, we can speculate about it, but it’s hard to prove one way or another. So, this is a significant contribution.”
A fishy find
In 2018, Lanoë and his colleagues had some luck on their side. They found the lower-leg bone–or tibia–of an adult canine at the Swan Point archeological site, about 70 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the canine lived about 12,000 years ago, near the end of the ice age.
During a separate excavation at a nearby site called Hollembaek Hill in 2023, the team found an 8,100-year-old canine jawbone that showed signs of possible domestication by humans.
Chemical analyses of the jawbone and tibia found substantial contributions from salmon proteins. This indicates that the canine regularly ate fish. According to the team, this was not typical of the canines that lived in the area during this time. Evidence shows that they hunted land animals almost exclusively. A dependence on humans is the most likely explanation for the salmon in the canine’s diet.
“This is the smoking gun because they’re not really going after salmon in the wild,” study co-author and University of Alaska Fairbanks archaeologist Ben Potter said in a statement.
The team is confident that the Swan Point canine helps establish the earliest known close relationships between humans and canines in the Americas. However, it is still too early to say whether the discovery is actually the earliest domesticated dog in the Americas.
Genetically, the specimens from Swan Point and Hollembaek Hill might be too old to be related to other known or more recent dog populations. It is also possible that they were tamed wolves instead of fully domesticated dogs.
[Related: Ancient wolf DNA is being used to sniff out where our love story with dogs began.]
“Behaviorally, they seem to be like dogs, as they ate salmon provided by people,” Lanoë said, “but genetically, they’re not related to anything we know.”
According to Potter, one reason that this study is valuable is because “it asks the existential question, what is a dog?”
It’s a question that the Mendas Cha’ag people and other tribal communities in the region have long understood the answers to.
‘These relationships have always been present’
Archaeologists have been working in Alaska’s Tanana Valley for close to a century. They now regularly present their plans before studies and research with the Healy Lake Village Council. The council represents the Mendas Cha’ag people and the group also authorized the genetic testing of new specimens in this study.
“It is little–but it is profound–to get the proper permission and to respect those who live on that land,” Evelynn Combs, a Healy Lake member and archeologist with the tribe’s cultural preservation office, said in a statement.
Healy Lake members have long considered their dogs to be mystic companions, according to Combs. Nearly every resident in her village is closely bonded to one dog and she spent childhood exploring the area with a Labrador retriever mix named Rosebud.
“I really like the idea that, in the record, however long ago, it is a repeatable cultural experience that I have this relationship and this level of love with my dog,” said Combs. “I know that throughout history, these relationships have always been present. I really love that we can look at the record and see that thousands of years ago, we still had our companions.”
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