According to studies by the University of California-Davis, the Inuit sled dogs are a unique breed, different from other Arctic dogs, including malamutes and huskies. The team studied the DNA from 921 dogs and wolves who lived during the last 4,500 years. These dogs are one of the last remaining descendant populations of indigenous, pre-European dog lineages in the Americas.
These dogs were essential for long-distance hauling of people and their supplies across the Arctic and helping to hunt food such as sea mammals. The dogs were essential to the Inuit people allowing them to survive the tough terrain of the North American Arctic 2,000 years ago.
Journal Reference:
Carly Ameen, Tatiana R. Feuerborn, Sarah K. Brown, Anna Linderholm, Ardern Hulme-Beaman, Ophélie Lebrasseur, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, Zachary T. Lounsberry, Audrey T. Lin, Martin Appelt, Lutz Bachmann, Matthew Betts, Kate Britton, John Darwent, Rune Dietz, Merete Fredholm, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Olga I. Goriunova, Bjarne Grønnow, James Haile, Jón Hallsteinn Hallsson, Ramona Harrison, Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Rick Knecht, Robert J. Losey, Edouard Masson-MacLean, Thomas H. McGovern, Ellen McManus-Fry, Morten Meldgaard, Åslaug Midtdal, Madonna L. Moss, Iurii G. Nikitin, Tatiana Nomokonova, Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir, Angela Perri, Aleksandr N. Popov, Lisa Rankin, Joshua D. Reuther, Mikhail Sablin, Anne Lisbeth Schmidt, Scott Shirar, Konrad Smiarowski, Christian Sonne, Mary C. Stiner, Mitya Vasyukov, Catherine F. West, Gro Birgit Ween, Sanne Eline Wennerberg, Øystein Wiig, James Woollett, Love Dalén, Anders J. Hansen, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Benjamin N. Sacks, Laurent Frantz, Greger Larson, Keith Dobney, Christyann M. Darwent, Allowen Evin. Specialized sledge dogs accompanied Inuit dispersal across the North American Arctic. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2019; 286 (1916): 20191929 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1929
Cite This Page:
University of California – Davis. “Unique sled dogs helped the Inuit thrive in the North American Arctic.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 November 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191127161405.htm>.
