Unique sledge dogs helped the Inuit thrive in the North American Arctic

A unique group of dogs helped the Inuit conquer the tough terrain of the North American Arctic, a major new analysis of the remains of hundreds of animals shows. The results of a major new study on the remains of Artic sledge dogs reveals that the Inuit brought specialised dogs with them when they migrated from Siberia over the Bering Strait into North America. 'Instead of adopting local dogs they would have come across during their migration, the Inuit instead maintained their own dog breeds brought from Siberia, suggesting they were keen to enhance or keep the special features they had,' says Greger Larson, co-author of the study and professor at the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford. 'By analysing the shape of elements from 391 dogs, we can see that the Inuit brought over larger dogs with a proportionally narrower cranium to the dogs that already existed in North America.' Experts had thought the Inuit used dogs to pull sledges, and this is the first study which shows they introduced a new dog population to the region to do this. These dogs then spread across the North American Arctic alongside Inuit migrants. The Inuit dogs are the direct ancestors of modern Arctic sledge dogs, although their appearance has continued to change over time. 'Archaeological evidence has shown us that before the Inuit arrived in North America, dog sledging was a rarity,' says study co-lead author Tatiana Feuerborn, from the Globe Institute in Denmark and the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden.