Palaeoproteomic analyses of dog palaeofaeces reveal a preserved dietary and host digestive proteome

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Main Authors: Runge, Anne Kathrine W., Hendy, Jessica, Richter, Kristine K., Masson-MacLean, Edouard, Britton, Kate, Mackie, Meaghan, McGrath, Krista, Collins, Matthew, Cappellini, Enrico, Speller, Camilla
• Other Authors: Novo Nordisk Fonden, Danmarks Grundforskningsfond, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, H2020 European Research Council
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 2021
• Subjects: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences; General Environmental Science; General Immunology and Microbiology; General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; General Medicine; Arctic; Pacific; Sockeye; permafrost; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0020; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2021.0020; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2021.0020

The domestic dog has inhabited the anthropogenic niche for at least 15 000 years, but despite their impact on human strategies, the lives of dogs and their interactions with humans have only recently become a subject of interest to archaeologists. In the Arctic, dogs rely exclusively on humans for food during the winter, and while stable isotope analyses have revealed dietary similarities at some sites, deciphering the details of provisioning strategies have been challenging. In this study, we apply zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry to dog palaeofaeces to investigate protein preservation in this highly degradable material and obtain information about the diet of domestic dogs at the Nunalleq site, Alaska. We identify a suite of digestive and metabolic proteins from the host species, demonstrating the utility of this material as a novel and viable substrate for the recovery of gastrointestinal proteomes. The recovered proteins revealed that the Nunalleq dogs consumed a range of Pacific salmon species (coho, chum, chinook and sockeye) and that the consumed tissues derived from muscle and bone tissues as well as roe and guts. Overall, the study demonstrated the viability of permafrost-preserved palaeofaeces as a unique source of host and dietary proteomes.