AB Siegenthaler

DPhil in Archaeology

Thesis

Do sleeping dogs lie? Re-examining the identification of early domestic dogs based on interment contexts

Supervisor(s)

Professor Greger Larson, Professor David Griffiths, Andrew Shapland

Member of PalaeoBARN: https://palaeobarn.web.ox.ac.uk/home

Publications

'Reassessing early dog burials in the context of non-domesticated animal inhumations' (in press)

Research interests

My research integrates various archaeological approaches, including excavation, morphometrics, isotopic analysis and DNA analysis, to investigate the origins of domestic dogs, while at the same time interrogating past approaches to this question. My interests include reconstructing ancient animal-human relationships, animal agency within human-animal interactions, the concept of animal personhood as preserved in the archaeological record, and in particular canid-human interactions throughout (pre)history.

Current research includes:

- A comprehensive survey of non-domesticated animal burials (see Publications)

- Dog and wolf burials in the late Pleistocene/early Holocene in Siberia

- Using the Neotoma database to assess numbers of archaeological vs palaeontological animal depositions