David Ian Howe
Appearances
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But mainly through the anthropology, like cultural aspect, just seeing the sheer amount of creation stories and mythologies and oral traditions of different cultures in which dogs play a role in creation. or are there present in creation or have to do with the afterlife. Yeah, like Anubis in Egyptian mythology, when you die, he's the first one that meets you and he kind of greets you before.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
He's like your chaperone to get to the rest of the gods in the underworld. And he holds that scale. A dog is judging your soul, like were you a good person or a bad person, which I find great. And then of course, the three-headed dog in Greek mythology, he keeps people in and out of the underworld, he guards it.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And in Mexico mythology, like a dog waits for you across the river in the first land of the dead, and then it will help you like navigate you through the lands of the dead so you don't have to do it alone.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And that's very common, like different versions of that myth, especially in the Americas.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, I would think so. It was so fascinating to me that dogs are just so intrinsic to human life and so symbiotic that it's not even a question. They're just part of the stories. In the Egyptian sense, I read a paper trying to figure this out, and jackals like to scavenge tombs and graves and things like that.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And in the Bible, it always says they were fed to the dogs or left them for the dogs or left them for the wolves. They always scavenge death and like dogs came to be because they were scavenging bones around our camp. So it makes sense that we would associate them with some kind of like, it's called a psychopomp, like something that guides you to the afterlife.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Dogs are so crucial to human nature and culture now that it would make sense that if there was some kind of afterlife, dogs are there.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. Obviously, chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest relatives in terms of genetics, but wolves are so socially intelligent. They show their teeth, they roll over, they wag their tail, they have different barks, and they're monogamous to an extent. Close enough. So early humans would have noticed that. and probably felt some kind of kinship with the wolf in that sense.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But over time, the reason we could interact with each other so well was because we're so social and dogs would have picked up on our social cues with their eyes and stuff as well. If you think of a pug, it's basically bred to look like a human face. It's flat and they have the big eyes. So over time, it became advantageous for dogs to understand our eye movements and like it was bred for.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
on its own as a side effect of being heavily bred to be around people.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And a common theme I've noticed is that While a human is hunting, you and I could see a deer if it's against the wind. And we'll see it before your dog sees it. But if we don't see the deer and it's on the wind, a dog will either hear it or smell it first. So you can notice your dog perk up before you see something. And it's... We both complement each other's senses.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Like our sight is obviously much better as primates, but their scent and hearing is just exponentially better than ours. So with that in mind and just how social we are, I would imagine if they don't already understand pointing now, it's something that, you know, it's on the way there.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
In the chemical sense, dogs can share. They release oxytocin, and we do as well when we pet them or when we interact. I can look at my dog right now and make that stupid sound. That's just your brain doing that because you... look at it like a baby or an infant. And that's that, you know, primate desire to care for that thing.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But in terms of like in history, the first dog burial that is like known is one in Germany at a place called bone over castle. And it's two humans and a dog buried together. And that would be not to say that's the first one, which is the first one we know of. But to me, it's like humans for a long time, aren't burying each other. until like roughly tens of thousands years ago, 100,000 years ago.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
So when you start burying people, it's that idea of like, we're human, there's probably something after or whatever. And like, let's bury this person with culture and reverence. And like, that's a huge milestone in human history. When you're taking that idea and then passing it on to a non-human animal, that's like another step in human history. And the dog is the first one we do that with.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
From a trailer park. Really? Yeah, I wanted a German Shepherd. I've always wanted a German Shepherd like that. I'd rather give it a good life, and I can, so I did. He is definitely... I've had a beagle and I've had a lab. He is like a domestic wolf more so than my other animals were. I used to think it was elitist when German shepherd people were like, you just don't understand the shepherd bond.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And now I fully get it. It's a different creature. Yeah.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
He's so intelligent and smart and I can see him thinking and he'll like trick me sometimes until like I don't want him to get his bone or bring it outside because he'll, you know, bury it and come back in full of dirt. But like he'll hide it in his mouth a specific way or run back in the door to get it before I can let him out. But mainly my other animals or dogs always wanted to be pet.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
They like loved it and like constantly on you. He's very autonomous and he only wants to be pet when he wants to be pet. But another thing too is that when I'm hiking or skiing, he like will run to the front of the group and then run to the back of the group and just patrol and kind of search. And at night, I really want to map this out and do some data on it because it's so fascinating.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But he'll find different spots in the house to sleep at night to get different views of each exit, but also I'm still in view. And my beagle didn't do that. She just slept in bed and snored. But he's just working. It's just so different.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
No one's ever asked me that. It's a good question. So dogs are like a remnant artifact of the Ice Age to me. We still have from that time. We don't use stone tools so much anymore. We don't have to sell our hides and live in caves. But whether you grew up in Hong Kong in a high rise and have never gone to the forest, New York City... Central Park's all you got, things like that.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Or if you're like me here in Wyoming and I'm out in the woods with my dog and I can see if he hears something or he alerts me, we all share that piece of nature and dogs are just an artifact of our past that we still keep with us every day that hasn't changed.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Well, I mean, it's changed very much in terms of chihuahuas and wolves, but there's still a living, breathing predator that hangs out in our house with us and One other caveat with that, too, is if an alien came to the planet and just saw Coco the gorilla speak to a fox, and then the fox took out Osama bin Laden, it's such an absurd thing to think about. That sucks.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But yeah, it's fascinating. And I know my dog thinks and I know he like they can understand syntax in a sense. And like, want to go pee pee is like, it's like, yeah, he gets that. It's like several words, but he probably just hears pee pee.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
My name is David Ian Howe. He, him.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. Higher latitudes. Obviously, there's a lot more dog and human interaction because of wolves being there, especially like in northern Asia, East Asia, Europe, and then the Basenji in Africa and all that.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But one thing I did learn that kind of interested me was dogs don't do well in the tropics, at least back in the day. So when the Americas were being peopled by the earliest Americans going down through the tropics of Mexico and Nicaragua and all that, the dog population kind of just stops for a while. And the Inca at some point eventually have dogs.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
In Southeast Asia and in Central America, there's a bottleneck of less dogs because they just don't do well in the tropics back then.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Too hot. And I think diseases like drinking out of ponds and stuff might have too many bacteria or parasites and things. Because humans can boil the water, but dogs can sneak off and still drink it. And that might be the case.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, it's exciting. It's definitely an ology. I guess technically ethnocynology falls under umbrella of anthropology to me. But I was just so into dogs and I did a whole bunch of research and all my term papers were on dogs. And I was looking to see like, is there a specific study of dogs in human context?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Whether there is science to support the idea of co-evolution between humans and dogs. Thanks so much. Bye.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
We are very much human in the sense that we are now. Like 50,000 years ago, you could take somebody and put them through school and they could do the SAT just fine. They could read Shakespeare, like the people that were painting all the caves in France and stuff. So we were human by then. And when we were interacting with dogs, I don't think there's been enough time to fully co-evolve.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But there are some like biological adaptations that like dogs have picked up or we've bred into them that they have definitely co-evolved with humans, to say the least. And there are certain things like dogs sleeping near you does calm you down, helps you sleep better. Just petting a dog can lower your heart rate kind of stuff. So that counts.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Some people will comment, like when I post a video of me petting my dog, that like, he's uncomfortable. You should stop or like read X, Y, and Z sign. But that's just my dog. But other times he'll like paw at me to keep doing it. So I guess that's the case. And then my beagle and my lab, especially my lab, just like, if you weren't petting her, it was like distraught. So, yeah.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
So it's not like something you can major in, but it technically is the Greek word for what I'm talking about.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I've never seen too many wolves up close or wolves 20,000 years ago, but apparently wolves don't bark. They will when they're playing and stuff like that, but they don't bark in the sense that dogs do as their form of communication. And that was certainly bred in dogs as a warning bark probably first or to indicate there's an animal when you're hunting, but also... Just as a communicate.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Because I know cats meow more around humans. So it's probably the same thing. If they don't meow so much in the wild, they just do it to get our attention.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. And it's also cool because cats are the same thing. They're in the order carnivora. They're a social predator the same way. And they just... Like, we all interact so, like, similarly in that sense.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I can say... Like anecdotally with my dog, he won't let me know when he's in pain and shepherds are notorious for being whiny. And then I know for a fact, dogs in the past have like skeletal trauma, either from being kicked or, you know, kicked out of camp or it's hard to tell if it was a fight with another dog or they got gored by a, you know, a boar or something.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Hard to tell, but yeah, dogs had a hard life for a long time, which yeah, significant bummer.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. I went to school for hunter-gatherer archaeology, and I studied stone tools mainly as my thesis. And I wanted to go get my PhD for this specifically, but there's no school that has a specific... We studied dog archaeology program, you know, and that's difficult.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. Dogs, so when the Europeans got here to the Americas, they brought dogs with them as well, but the indigenous had dogs. But with the overwhelming amount of population of the Europeans that came here when the colonial era started, those dogs interbred with indigenous American dogs all up and down South and North America to the point where the genetic lines of pre-contact dogs are gone.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But to my best understanding, a Chihuahua is a Mesoamerican breed, but it's been bred so many times with European dogs and then back to like a Chihuahua kind of thing that it has European DNA more than indigenous DNA. It just looks like a Chihuahua. The Xolo too, the same, the hairless dog in Mexico, same kind of thing. And then there's the American Dingo, which is the Carolina Swamp Dog, has some
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
DNA still. And then the Greenland dog is one of the only remaining indigenous American breeds that's left.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Fetch, to me, is a social bonding mechanism between humans and dogs. It bonds you. It's like dogs love play that strengthens the bond. But fetching, I believe, is a direct quirk that comes from hunting. Whereas like a dog, like if you treat an animal, like you treat a raccoon or you treat something, dogs run up to the tree and bark and like scare it until it's stuck in that spot.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And then the hunter can get it. Or if a human shot a bird with a shotgun or a bow back in the day and it fell, like dogs love to go get that and bring it back. And I think that's all fetch is. And it's just a redirection of that because dogs are essentially around to hunt and fetch is like a good outlet for that. And they just love it. But yeah, social bonding mechanism.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
She won't. My lab wouldn't either.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Like, no joke, I would throw the ball and it would just like bounce off her head and she would just sit there staring at me. But my shepherd, he loves fetch, like to the point where it's annoying. So I found that interesting.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
i would say that's definitely hardwired because dogs are bred specifically to do certain things like a greyhound or a whippet wants to run like really bad and it has to run or it's going to go mentally kind of crazy in the house terriers are bred for ratting like they want to find little things and rat and labs are bred to swim if i remember correctly or retrieve and then Yeah.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Dogs just want to do that stuff. And like my shepherd too, like he can't turn it off. I went to a lake house with my friends for a bachelor party. And the first thing he did was just go sniff every inch of the perimeter and constantly patrol. Like he was like having a blast and I didn't tell him to do that. He just does it. Yeah.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. And this one's always a sticky answer, but I'll just be honest. I think I love pit bulls. Like they've always been sweet with me and stuff. The only dogs I've been bit by have been pit bulls, but that just happens to be because I sample size of two that have bit me. But I can't say as an anthropologist, like,
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. Or like, where do you teach? How do I be a student? And I was like, I don't, but I will say Dr. Angela Perry is a archeologist and she does a lot of this dog archeology and she's like a wizard with that and can do all the genetic aspects and a lot of stuff that she publishes is like kind of what people would like want to read.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Breeding dogs for specific tasks like ratting or racing or things like that, that they are bred for these things, but socializing them to not do that is going to pull that out of them from that last question. I can try to socialize my dog as best I can not to patrol the house, but he's still going to do it. So one thing I always heard was it's not the breed, it's the breeder.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Pit bulls are sweet to me. Like I've had so many sweet pit bulls in my life that I've met and like they're fun to play with. And so the huge head and their big mouth is so cute to me. But if the breeder is breeding them for those specific nefarious reasons or whatever their origins used to be, that line of dogs might just tend to be more inherently aggressive because that's what they're bred for.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But other pit bulls can be bred to be completely sweet. So... Yeah, it's very sticky. I'll say that. But again, just how intrinsic dogs are in our culture in terms of like even with like a culture war or like different ethnic identities and stuff dogs are associated with.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, exactly.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Shepherds can also have behavioral issues just like that. There's a lot of shepherd rescues. Malinois, for sure, because they're not... A Malinois, to me, is a supercomputer. It's just a flesh robot.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Like in terms of a biotechnology, but you know, if they're not properly exercised and like use their brains the way they're supposed to, like they can be aggressive and it's not just pit bulls.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah. Especially a mental simulation that could even help more than exercise sometimes.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I have ADHD as well. So it's like, I remember hearing that and I was like, yeah, your husband is me. Yeah, exactly.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I can answer that specifically for the Americas. A lot of dog skeletons that are found, their spinal column, like the Oh man, my anthropology friends are going to kill me. I can't remember the word, but the part of the spine that sticks straight up in a dog that sticks straight up in our back, the thin part of the vertebrae. Spinous process. There's a lot of times it's like curved pretty badly.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And I would have thought that was from wearing packs or like pulling things that causes that, you know, pathology. But another study was saying that it just seems kind of natural. Like over time dogs, it'll happen to them. I will say like the Saluki is bred naturally.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
a long time ago or the greyhound and they have that giant thoracic cavity for that pulmonary system to pump the blood through its body to run fast. So if you're breeding a dog to have this giant chest to be like a race car, like if you have something so positive, there's probably also negatives back then too.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, I would say it's one of those like We were too worried if we could. We didn't stop to think if we should kind of situations. I just think I butchered the line. But yeah, that Victorian era, there's just dogs of all shapes and sizes and pugs and mastiffs, like a bloodhound in that sense too. We just get a little overzealous with breeding to be so different that it can probably cause issues.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And I know dachshunds too, being so long, have that spine issue too. I've seen a German shepherd mixed with a corgi on the internet. It's adorable, but that poor thing's hips and spine must just constantly be in pain. So I would say like the Victorian era for sure, and maybe even in Roman times.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I saw a doc where they had people watch a horror film and then people watch like a just regular happy film and collect their sweat. And then they like put that test tube up to a dog's nose. And if it was like a fear response from the horror movie, the dog kind of like freaked out and cowered a bit. And then in the other one, like their tails would wag and stuff like that. So there's that.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I know dogs can like tell when I'm anxious like my dog does for sure. You can tell when you're crying and stuff like that.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I did just see a neuroscientist say that there's a machine they built, like an AI thing, that can tell if you're pregnant and can also tell who the father is, which is wild to me. But I imagine since dogs' scent receptors are so much, like by the thousands, stronger than ours, that could be possible.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
All of my term papers in those classes were focused on dogs. But doing that, looking for dogs that live around humans, you can also study all of those subjects equally with dogs. And just I found so much information. It was overwhelming.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Oh, that's what the dingo is. It was a domestic dog. If not a domestic dog, it was a dog that followed humans around after domestication to Australia. And then once they got to Australia, realized there's a whole continent full of kangaroos without a dog-like thing. The thylacine was there.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But dingoes kind of pushed out the thylacine in a sense, too, because they're just so effective at hunting. They even introduced a dog to Australia that then became a wolf because it just had such abundance to hunt and do all those things. And that's a standard yellow pointy-eared dog.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
That would be a whole episode. But it's a very political... And then indigenous versus, you know, colonist debate. And there's a lot of stigma against dingoes, kind of like there's stigma against wolves here. But the science to me kind of says that, like, they've been in Australia for upwards of 10,000 years. The environment has had enough time to adjust to them.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
So they are kind of natural in that sense. And the same thing that indigenous Australians are natural to the area in that sense, too. So I don't know. It's a very politically charged debate.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I get sent like, is this a dog bone? And it's like probably just like a chicken wing, but they'll send it to me. But yeah, so this is a soapbox of mine is that species is a spectrum. It's not a cut and dry thing. Evolution is not Pokemon, right? You don't just evolve into the next thing 10 seconds later. It takes thousands of years.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
So coyotes, dogs, dingoes, wolves, and some jackals are all in the genus Canis, which means they can all interbreed. And there can be dogs that are mixed with coyotes, coyotes that are mixed with wolves. All of it is just they're all like a dog is a subspecies of the wolf to me, as is the dingo. They're all wolves that can interbreed.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
So when you're looking at coyotes and stuff, it could be very similar to a small dog or a large dog, depending on. So the answer would be you just have to have enough of a comparative collection of dogs and coyotes to kind of match it up. But there are certain markers that you can tell, okay, this is a coyote. It's more slender than say a lab.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, a lot of digs. You can find specific sites that have dogs at it. But what really intrigued me was reading old ethnographies from either the French or the Spanish or the English when they got here. Or just the Bureau of Ethnology went out in the early 1900s just documenting whatever was left of indigenous cultures. And there's a wealth of information in there because...
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And then wolves are going to be way more robust, especially in the Americas. So it's hard to tell. And now you can do it with chemical tests and things like that too.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
An ex of mine called it puppy crack. Because like it's just such an addicting smell. Apparently it's like a fungus or like something that like some kind of chemical that's emitted. But yeah, the corn, like the Frito feet, it just, I love that smell. And then the inside of their ears too is like a very distinct smell.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, exactly. And then everyone loves their own dog's smell, but then other people are like, your dog stinks, dude. And I'm like, no, he does not. He smells amazing.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, wolves make a den. Coyotes make dens as well. I think that's what it comes from. I did see a study that dogs always turn a specific way because they want to face a certain direction, like cardinal direction, like a pigeon, I guess. They can home in a certain sense.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Without the horse or cows or, you know, any other animals, the dog was crucial to life for Indigenous Americans here. And just so much. And every culture kind of has dogs or something that they do, or at least they live there.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But I mean, my dog will spin three to six times on the bed and then decide he doesn't want to sleep on the bed and leaves it. Like, it's just so odd. Yeah.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I have heard... That is correct. Yeah. I can't think if it was a scientific study or like a Snapplecap fact, but I've heard that before, that they do enjoy music and like they can tell when, like I leave NPR on for my dog when I'm gone. So there's something going on, which has music and talking to calm them down.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Dogs, to me, are like... A wolf adapted to life among Homo sapiens. So like that would be how I define a dog. And in that sense, whatever life they have with a Homo sapien, like their sole existence is to interact and be close and social with humans. So yeah, I would think so. I don't know how to quantify it, but yeah, like my dog loves me 86.72% repeating.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
So like, I don't know, but I would imagine so. Yeah.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Debated topic. Very debated. Let's break it down. But I would say humans leave Africa, we get to Eurasia, specifically Siberia, and you're interacting with wolves who are an equally social and intelligent predator. So you're going to be running into each other. They both hunt caribou a lot, especially in that area.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
In the same sense, the suckiest thing about archaeology is I will never know exactly what happened or how dogs came to be without a time machine. And another thing, too, is we worked on a mammoth site last year where a mammoth got killed Then there was a camp built around it where they were butchering it and tanning all the hides and stuff. This was in Wyoming.
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And there's a big carcass of a mammoth right there. They probably either kicked the dogs out of camp or chained them up somewhere maybe. But you're never going to see...
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
evidence of dogs in the middle of like the activity area so i would have to just dig shovel tests all the way around the site just hoping i found the dog bone because they usually hang out on the outskirts of site so the thing that sucks the most is like dogs are very hard to find archaeologically unless you just stumble upon like a burial where you see their bones and like a trash heap from being eaten like the later you go into history the more dogs you're going to see but way back in time not sure and that does i guess suck i guess to answer the question
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My absolute pipe dream of a site would be like a human gourd on a mammoth tusk. So knowing they were going at it and then like his dog also near it. So just to confirm that all of that was going on at the same time or her dog, you know. But yes, I do. Like everyone has their dream find, like just to find a really, even if it wasn't like groundbreaking, just a very nice place. ornately buried dog.
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And you can get that connection with those people from like 14,000 years ago, like how much they clearly cared for this animal as well, which is kind of humbling to me.
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Yeah, I think we all do. I accidentally broke a mammoth bone on accident on a dig because I was trying to get the sand out from under it before we put the cast over it. And for whatever reason, I just yanked and I just split it in half and I was like... Which is fine because you glue it and bring it back to the lab anyway.
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But yeah, just dreams like that where I broke something and I can't bring my dog to sight anymore because he's just so special where he like... will run into the big pit of bones and take one or lay in it. He just doesn't get it. But the other dogs leave it alone.
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But yeah, in terms of nightmares, I'd say that... And I also have nightmares of giving a conference presentation and everyone's like, you're wrong.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
It's just so wrapped into archaeology for me, but... I guess I can answer it this way. Like I studied stone tools in grad school as well for my master's and like, making stone tools. And the process of that is called flintknapping. And there's so much science and physics that goes into it and skill. And it's kind of works the same area of your brain as chess.
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So like Neanderthals made very complex stone tools, Homo erectus did. So to sit down and flintknapp, you really do get into the mind of ancient people and how intelligent they were. Because like, if you've never made a stone tool, like if I handed you one right now, you wouldn't know what to do.
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And like I've done it for five years now and I'm nowhere near like an expert at it. But just to sit there and be like, wow. And then like if you imagine sitting around a campfire making stone tools and stuff and then just the dogs running around and things like that, like telling stories around a fire.
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I love anthropology because it can get an archaeology like I can get into the mind of somebody who lived that long ago just by like understanding their tools and dogs as an extent of that as well.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Oh, man. Next summer, I think we're doing some more testing out here in Wyoming to look for more sites. Again, it's hard to just pull up a dog. You can only hope. But that would be the next big one. And then if Russia ever opens back up, I'd love to go to Siberia and just hunt in caves for different dogs that are there. Dead dogs, like old, ancient ones.
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I have a question for you, if you don't mind. I was asked this at the end of my podcast, but what do dogs mean to you? If you had an answer to that.
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And I would say that whole time, like the domestication process is happening. But we can see like the dog as we genetically know it today appears 20,000 years ago in East Asia, Siberia.
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I love that. That's a great answer.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Cool. Usually people are thrown off and have to think, but yeah, no, I like that a lot. I haven't really thought about it from the surrogate child angle, you know, because my dog's kind of my son in a sense. Yeah.
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I agree, for sure. I remember... We had to put our beagle down when I was in high school. My dad and I just sobbed at the vet place. And then 300 came out that day. So we were like, let's just go watch the very opposite of crying with your father. Yeah, I won't forget that because it was such like a juxtaposition day. But yeah, it's brutal.
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Like my cat too, when I lost him, I just like wept for like three days. Then I was like, okay, but I've never lost a human that close to me before yet, knock on wood. So it's just like, yeah, it's tough. And that's just ethnocynology to me too. Like they're so, I keep saying intrinsic, but just part of human life that it's like inseparable in that sense.
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Yeah. Unconditionally.
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Yeah. If I know more, I'll post it.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I appreciate you having me. Oh my God, of course. This is really fun.
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I guess two answers to that. In that East Asia, Siberia area where people are... you know, domesticating dogs, or you could say wolves are self-domesticating around hominid camps. People then go to the Americas, either across the land bridge or down the coast, whatever theory you subscribe to.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And that's how dogs ended up in the Americas and the only like domestic animal there until turkeys and llamas later. But the rest of the world, you can see dogs are traded kind of like a commodity and you can see dog genetic lines being traded across Eurasia into Africa.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And to answer the question fully, I would say like the Neolithic, when we go from hunting and gathering to that more sedentary lifestyle with a bigger population, dogs just kind of boom around then.
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And there's so much I could answer there.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Dogs eating, or I could say early dogs, wolves eating scraps around human camps would help deter predators in itself. Wolves don't necessarily bark. Non-domestic wolves don't bark, but once dogs started barking, we were breeding for that. They would alert for different predators.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But certainly hunting, that's probably the first thing. Because we were probably finding wolves hunting and then just stealing their kill. Or vice versa, the wolves would try to steal a human kill. But that interaction was happening. But yeah, hunting, sentinels, like garden camps. And then, especially in the Americas, we know dogs were being used to help pull loads before the horse.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
They would wear little backpacks to help collect shellfish and berries and all that. And... In some areas, they were used for their wool or their fur, I should say. And then this one's always kind of dicey, but just until like, you know, 1980, dogs are kind of just eaten all over the world as a food source, usually out of like a ceremonial purpose.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, there's cultures where like there's endocannibalism where like you eat people within your group or exocannibalism is eating people outside of your group. But when you're eating within your group, it's kind of you can imagine like You want that person to be part of you kind of thing. And that's something that happens in different tribal cultures.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
And I imagine that's probably what happened with dogs. Because a lot of dogs are... Archaeologically, when you find they were kind of in their prime, maybe a little older. So maybe they were a good hunting dog and they were eaten in that sense. Can't tell exactly if all of them are eaten. It's like only if the cut marks show up on the bones. But...
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I know in definitely indigenous cultures, some puppies are eaten, or I think in Mexico culture, for sure, dogs were eaten out of respect for their sacrifice for people and things like that.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
I would study stone tools or things like that or projectile weapons and stuff, but dogs are such a versatile tool. You can literally code by breeding them to do different tasks. Wow. Yeah, I find that so cool. The early tasks of hunting and guarding and stuff like that, but then if you think about... Salukis or greyhounds are meant for speed and racing, and then dachshunds burrow into stuff.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Huskies are a lot bigger to pull sleds and have that load-bearing. And then there's livestock guardian dogs, which are bigger than wolves because they have to fight wolves. That would appear, to my knowledge, after the Neolithic. There's a lot of that. After 10,000 years of them being around, you'll start seeing more...
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Diverse breeds, though the standard dog probably would have looked like a dingo-like thing with that standard yellow coat. Not a wolf, but not a dog. If you think of ancient Mexico, they had the Chihuahua, the Shillet's Quintly, all sorts of different dogs. But the modern breeds we have is definitely like a Victorian era thing where they became a status symbol.
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The wealthy could have very specific dogs. And even in Rome, if you were a wealthy Roman citizen, you could import a fancy Egyptian greyhound and show it off. Even back then.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Yeah, like specific niche breeds.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
Two things from the anthropological, like zoological perspective. Are dogs more beneficial to humans than not? Do you need to waste extra calories feeding the dogs or do they help you get more calories like in a hunter-gatherer setting than you would without them? That kind of varies depending on where you're at in the world and that's debated.
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Ethnocynology (HUMANS & DOGS THROUGH TIME) with David Ian Howe
But that was interesting to me to see how different that can be.