Investigating the domestication and early management of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in the Sámi archaeological context from teeth geometric morphometrics

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Pelletier, Maxime, Discamps, Emmanuel, Bignon-Lau, Olivier, Salmi, Anna-Kaisa
• Other Authors: University of Oulu, Travaux et recherches archéologiques sur les cultures, les espaces et les sociétés (TRACES), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (UT2J), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (MCC)-Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (Inrap)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Ethnologie préhistorique, Archéologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité (ArScAn), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (UP1)-Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis (UP8)-Université Paris Nanterre (UPN)-Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (MCC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (UP1)-Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis (UP8)-Université Paris Nanterre (UPN)-Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (MCC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Technologie et Ethnologie des Mondes Préhistoriques (TEMPS), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (UP1)-Université Paris Nanterre (UPN)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), ANR-18-CE03-0007,DeerPal,Groupes humains et cervidés au Paléolithique: intégrer la variabilité de l'écologie et de l'éthologie des proies dans l'étude des interactions homme-environnement dans le passé(2018)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDV.BA.ZV]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology/Vertebrate Zoology; Fennoscandia; Rangifer tarandus; Lapland
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04070760; https://hal.science/hal-04070760/document; https://hal.science/hal-04070760/file/Pelletier%20et%20al%202023.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33422-6

International audience Abstract For centuries, reindeer herding has been an integral part of the subsistence, lifeways, economy and cosmology of the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia. Despite its importance, the timing and details of early reindeer domestication are still highly debated. Identifying domesticated individuals in the archaeological record remains complicated due to the presence of two interbreeding subspecies in Fennoscandia and a mixed socio-economic organisation by Sámi populations, which was mainly a combination of wild reindeer hunting and small-scale reindeer herding. This study proposes methodological improvement for identifying domestic individuals using 2D landmark and sliding semi-landmark based geometric morphometrics on the isolated lower molars of 389 modern specimens, and 90 teeth from four archaeological sites in Finnish Lapland. Our results indicate that despite the significant impact of wear on overall tooth morphology, our protocol is very useful for identifying subspecies (classification accuracy of the two species is between 78 and 91% depending on the wear class) and understanding the morphological changes induced by the domestication process. We suggest that the morphological variation observable among modern populations has been impacted by recent changes in herding strategies in northern Fennoscandia, and that the archaeological domesticated reindeer populations were relatively different, probably due to selection by the Sámi. This study also highlights the importance of using other direct evidence or contextual archaeological data to better trace the early evidence of a domesticated reindeer economy in northern Fennoscandia, and aid in reconstructing the socio-economic changes in Sámi populations over time.