Morphological study of mandibular Canis remains from the El Portalón (Sierra de Atapuerca) Holocene site. Implications for the origin of the domestic dog in prehistory

Abstract

El Portalón from Cueva Mayor is one of the most important Holocene archeo-paleontological sites on the Northern Plateau and is part of the karstic complex of the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain). The Bronze Age constitutes a very important legacy in the central region of the Iberian Peninsula. This period covers most of the domestication processes of wild animals. One of the species proposed to have been domesticated in this context is the wolf (Canis lupus). It is essential to analyse the differences between dogs and wolves from a morphometric perspective due to the shortage of evincing of a specific haplotype in domestic animals (dogs). This work aims to analyse mandibular features on mandibles of genus Canis from the early–middle Bronze Age from the El Portalón site. Also, we compare these remains with current specimens of wolves and dogs to provide knowledge about the evolutionary process from the wild to the domestic form of the species Canis lupus. The results suggest that the mandibles from El Portalón are smaller in size than modern wolves, however, they keep primitives’ traits in the mandibular ramus and in M1.