ANTH 260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Mexican Hairless Dog, Koster Site, Canidae
1 Jun 2018
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Tuesday, May 22, 2018 Lecture Notes
Dogs Continued
• Domestication model
o Wolves, coyotes, jackals, and dogs are similar and interfertile.
o Dogs tend to live off of human refuse when possible, so why not in the past?
o Those dogs who were less timid would eat more, be in better health, and pass on
their genes.
o Village life itself may have created a context for domestication.
• Discussion Points
o Trait by Trait Selection: It’s hard to imagine that humans could have selected
many of the traits of dogs.
o Experiments on foxes that selected for tameness gave rise to similar
morphologies- tail position, drooping ears, black and white coats, and changes in
breeding cycles. Barking in dogs is a possibility as well.
o These characteristics couldn’t have been selected for since they don’t occur in
wolves.
• Dominance and Submission
o Wolves have complex social structures and hierarchies.
o Submission is an impulse and effort by an inferior animal towards friendly and
harmonic social integration. It is ritualized behavior without hostility.
o A superior animal must maintain its position and behaviors. If not, the inferior
will take over.
o This system helps a group avoid infighting.
• Genetics and Dogs
o Dogs are the most phenotypically diverse mammal.
o Phenotype and genetics in dogs is complicated- even within a breed the genetics
can be really diverse. This is because breeds are so recent.
o There are multiple domestication events in Eurasia.
o Were new world dogs domesticated independently?
• New World Dogs
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