It is believed that by 1492 until the present day, the indigenous lines of dogs in America were replaced by the dogs from Europe. Therefore, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Iowa decided to study the remains of dogs that lived in Jamestown, Virginia because there were enough specimens to study.

They knew that prior to the introduction of European dogs, there were a lot of Indigenous dogs in the United States and that many of them disappeared. The researchers wanted to try and determine if they were culled, was it competition with European dogs or was their demise due to disease.

The team studied 22 remains that spanned the years from 1607 to 1619. What they found was that the body size of the dogs ranged between 22 – 39 lbs., about the size of a modern Beagle. The remains indicate that some of the dogs were eaten, which implies that the colonists did not have enough food. At least six of the dogs were of Indigenous North American ancestry suggesting that the colonists and Indigenous tribes traded dogs and were not overly concerned with interbreeding. The study also indicates that the Indigenous dogs were not immediately eradicated when Europeans arrived in North America.

Sue’s Note: The Carolina Dog is considered the last wild dog in North America.

Carolina Dog

Journal Reference:

1. Ariane E. Thomas, Matthew E. Hill, Leah Stricker, Michael Lavin, David Givens, Alida de Flamingh, Kelsey E. Witt, Ripan S. Malhi, Andrew Kitchen. The Dogs of Tsenacomoco: Ancient DNA Reveals the Presence of Local Dogs at Jamestown Colony in the Early Seventeenth Century. American Antiquity, 2024; 1 DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2024.25

Cite This Page:

Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Ancient DNA reveals Indigenous dog lineages found at Jamestown, Virginia.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 August 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240816173937.htm>.