Archaeology, Museums, Heritage and Material Culture Seminar: Dingo archaeology: A 3D look into the history of our native dog
Loukas Koungoulos | The University of Sydney
Dingo archaeology: A 3D look into the history of our native dog.
The dingo is an Australian icon with a controversial identity, with deep scientific divisions as to how they should be described. Is it a unique species, or just another breed of dog? A major obstacle in addressing this issue has always been the obscurity of dingo origins and history prior to European colonisation: the question of its relatedness to Asian dogs, and whether its relationship with Australian indigenous people constituted “domestication”. It has long been assumed that dingoes arrived as domesticated pet dogs aboard a visiting Southeast Asian boat and have since “gone wild” in Australia.
This research investigates the natural and cultural histories of the dingo through an analysis of their skeletal morphology from ancient times through to the present day. This is principally approached through a 3D geometric morphometric analysis of the dingo cranium, whose shape encodes valuable information about its evolutionary history – both broadly, and in the specific contexts of different biogeographic regions. Drawing also on ethnohistorical accounts, Aboriginal traditions, and modern biological sciences, this study attempts to provide a novel insight into an important aspect of Holocene Australian prehistory.
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The Department of Archaeology hosts a lively departmental research seminar series. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Where
Philosophy Room S2249
Quadrangle A14
The University of Sydney
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Seminar Series convenors:
Agata Calbrese,Lorraine Leung, Kieran McGee, Simon Wyatt-Spratt, and Sareeta Zaid
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The Department of Archaeology is part of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI).
The Seminar will be followed by conversation and casual drinks at the Forest Lodge Hotel (Flodge)