I was amazed when my Science Journal arrived with the Lin et. al. article on wool dogs. I asked myself, how did this get published and who reviewed it?
I started out getting my own DNA markers analysed over 20 years ago and added to them on a continual bases until the millions that I have now. In my extensive examination of this over the years, I have become aware of what the nature of sample size and sample origin can and cannot do. I read the increasing volume of published paper as I prepared to give talks on the peopling of the world based on DNA.
One of the trends I noticed is the lack of knowledge about genetics among anthropologists and the lack of understanding of anthropology among geneticists. Fortunately, this has improved with larger teams of people with expertise in both subject areas writing papers together.
I could see in the Lin et. al 1923, paper that some conclusions were not evidenced based. I also see a stereotype about Indigenous people that comes out in this paper, as it has in so many others. The colonialist view in the 19th century is that the cultures of indigenous people were inactive, unchanging primitive cultures since the beginning of time. Today, It is too frequent that broad statements are made about the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples that cover the last 150 years. It is important to examine history in smaller time sequences to understand the processes of change. And especially to understand the active role of Indigenous peoples in those processes.
During the early fur trade period from 1774 to the early 1800s, there were no non-Indigenous settlers. Some Indigenous people killed the first Europeans than came ashore, they chose not to trade. Others voluntarily began to trade. They wanted the European trade goods, especially ones that made their lives easier, such as iron knives and adze blades. Many intelligent Indigenous leaders quickly caught onto the value of European trade goods. There are many complaints in the fur trader’s journals about Indigenous people continually raising their price for the exchange of goods and how they played one trader against another.
The archaeological evidence, clearly shows that Indigenous people had been trading for thousands of years with their neighbours and other strangers living long distances away. Indigenous cultures were, and still are, dynamic and changing.
The role of wool dogs in Indigenous cultures on the southern coast of B.C. was not likely affected during the early fur trade, even with the depopulation that occurred with smallpox spreading from the Atlantic coast from the west side of the Bering Strait before European settlement in the 1780s.
The next fur trade period where Europeans and other non-local Indigenous people formed settlements around fur trade posts and the massive influx of people, along with introduced dogs, in 1858 is where drastic changes in traditional practices of dog ownership would have changed.
Agreed that interbreeding with European dogs during the 1858 gold rush would have had a profound and sudden impact on NW Coast aboriginal dogs, and undoubtedly accounts for much of the admixture of European genes.
However, the loss of Wool dog breeding stock through indiscriminate mating with Village dogs in the early 1800s is the real issue here.
The real significance of the traditional measures used by First Nations weavers to keep Wool dogs from mating with Village dogs is under-appreciated – some of those measures are described in ethnographic documents but others can be inferred to have existed.
If the distinctly small dogs found archaeologically are indeed ancient Wool dogs, those isolation measures were taken centuries before European dogs arrived for one reason and one reason only: to keep the Wool dog from going extinct through interbreeding with the much more abundant Village dogs that were literally just outside the door.
If indiscriminate mating with Village dogs had not been an ever-present threat to the integrity of the Wool dog as a distinct type in pre-colonial times, those isolation measures would not have been necessary.
In other words, since the very first appearance of a long-haired Wool dog, Village dogs were always the biggest threat to maintaining it as a commodity (and if Wool dogs hadn’t been a commodity, they almost certainly wouldn’t have existed: they needed to have that high value attached to make all the trouble it took to maintain them worthwhile).
The rapid acceptance of brightly-coloured Hudson’s Bay blankets by First Nations during the early 1800s is well documented in the historical record, as is the subsequent decline in trade value of dog’s wool blankets. As HB blankets replace traditional woven blankets as high-status items, the natural consequence is that weaving blankets becomes a waste of time and Wool dogs as a commodity become redundant, even if only for a few years.
On the relaxation of measures taken to keep them apart – it only takes one “escape” for a pregnancy to occur – and that season’s crop of puppies intended to be Wool dogs are instead larger pups with short (or shorter) hair. Eventually (possibly within only a year or two), the adult female Wool dogs used for breeding die of old age, disease, or accident, and that’s it: no more Wool dogs in the village.
In summary, the most parsimonious explanation for the extinction of the Wool dog as a distinct, genetically-unique entity is that it happened rapidly during the early 1800s, primarily through interbreeding with Village dogs. While it’s possible that there were also a few European dogs involved, they would have been the lesser of two threats.
I was amazed when my Science Journal arrived with the Lin et. al. article on wool dogs. I asked myself, how did this get published and who reviewed it?
I started out getting my own DNA markers analysed over 20 years ago and added to them on a continual bases until the millions that I have now. In my extensive examination of this over the years, I have become aware of what the nature of sample size and sample origin can and cannot do. I read the increasing volume of published paper as I prepared to give talks on the peopling of the world based on DNA.
One of the trends I noticed is the lack of knowledge about genetics among anthropologists and the lack of understanding of anthropology among geneticists. Fortunately, this has improved with larger teams of people with expertise in both subject areas writing papers together.
I could see in the Lin et. al 1923, paper that some conclusions were not evidenced based. I also see a stereotype about Indigenous people that comes out in this paper, as it has in so many others. The colonialist view in the 19th century is that the cultures of indigenous people were inactive, unchanging primitive cultures since the beginning of time. Today, It is too frequent that broad statements are made about the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples that cover the last 150 years. It is important to examine history in smaller time sequences to understand the processes of change. And especially to understand the active role of Indigenous peoples in those processes.
During the early fur trade period from 1774 to the early 1800s, there were no non-Indigenous settlers. Some Indigenous people killed the first Europeans than came ashore, they chose not to trade. Others voluntarily began to trade. They wanted the European trade goods, especially ones that made their lives easier, such as iron knives and adze blades. Many intelligent Indigenous leaders quickly caught onto the value of European trade goods. There are many complaints in the fur trader’s journals about Indigenous people continually raising their price for the exchange of goods and how they played one trader against another.
The archaeological evidence, clearly shows that Indigenous people had been trading for thousands of years with their neighbours and other strangers living long distances away. Indigenous cultures were, and still are, dynamic and changing.
The role of wool dogs in Indigenous cultures on the southern coast of B.C. was not likely affected during the early fur trade, even with the depopulation that occurred with smallpox spreading from the Atlantic coast from the west side of the Bering Strait before European settlement in the 1780s.
The next fur trade period where Europeans and other non-local Indigenous people formed settlements around fur trade posts and the massive influx of people, along with introduced dogs, in 1858 is where drastic changes in traditional practices of dog ownership would have changed.
Thanks for that, Grant. And welcome.
Agreed that interbreeding with European dogs during the 1858 gold rush would have had a profound and sudden impact on NW Coast aboriginal dogs, and undoubtedly accounts for much of the admixture of European genes.
However, the loss of Wool dog breeding stock through indiscriminate mating with Village dogs in the early 1800s is the real issue here.
The real significance of the traditional measures used by First Nations weavers to keep Wool dogs from mating with Village dogs is under-appreciated – some of those measures are described in ethnographic documents but others can be inferred to have existed.
If the distinctly small dogs found archaeologically are indeed ancient Wool dogs, those isolation measures were taken centuries before European dogs arrived for one reason and one reason only: to keep the Wool dog from going extinct through interbreeding with the much more abundant Village dogs that were literally just outside the door.
If indiscriminate mating with Village dogs had not been an ever-present threat to the integrity of the Wool dog as a distinct type in pre-colonial times, those isolation measures would not have been necessary.
In other words, since the very first appearance of a long-haired Wool dog, Village dogs were always the biggest threat to maintaining it as a commodity (and if Wool dogs hadn’t been a commodity, they almost certainly wouldn’t have existed: they needed to have that high value attached to make all the trouble it took to maintain them worthwhile).
The rapid acceptance of brightly-coloured Hudson’s Bay blankets by First Nations during the early 1800s is well documented in the historical record, as is the subsequent decline in trade value of dog’s wool blankets. As HB blankets replace traditional woven blankets as high-status items, the natural consequence is that weaving blankets becomes a waste of time and Wool dogs as a commodity become redundant, even if only for a few years.
On the relaxation of measures taken to keep them apart – it only takes one “escape” for a pregnancy to occur – and that season’s crop of puppies intended to be Wool dogs are instead larger pups with short (or shorter) hair. Eventually (possibly within only a year or two), the adult female Wool dogs used for breeding die of old age, disease, or accident, and that’s it: no more Wool dogs in the village.
In summary, the most parsimonious explanation for the extinction of the Wool dog as a distinct, genetically-unique entity is that it happened rapidly during the early 1800s, primarily through interbreeding with Village dogs. While it’s possible that there were also a few European dogs involved, they would have been the lesser of two threats.