title: The morphology of the mandibular coronoid process does not indicate thatCanis lupus chancois the progenitor to dogs.
abstract: The domestication of wolves is currently under debate. Where, when and from which wolf sub-species dogs originated are being investigated both by osteoarchaeologists and geneticists. While DNA research is rapidly becoming more active and popular, morphological methods have been the gold standard in the past. But even today morphological details are routinely employed to discern archaeological wolves from dogs. One such morphological similarity betweenCanis lupus chancoand dogs was published in 1977 by Olsen and Olsen. This concerns the "turned back" anatomy of the dorsal part of the vertical ramus of the mandible that was claimed to be specific to domestic dogs and Chinese wolvesC.lupus chanco, and "absent from other canids". Based on this characteristic,C.lupus chancowas said to be the progenitor of Asian and American dogs, and this specific morphology has been continuously used as an argument to assign archaeological specimens, including non-Asian and non-American, to the dog clade. We challenged this statement by examining 384 dog skulls of 72 breeds and 60 skulls of four wolf sub-species. Only 20 % of dog mandibles and 80 % ofC.lupus chancoshowed the specific anatomy. In addition, 12 % ofCanis lupus pallipesmandibles showed the "turned back" morphology. It can be concluded that the shape of the coronoid process of the mandible cannot be used as a morphological trait to determine whether a specimen belongs to a dog or as an argument in favour ofchancoas the progenitor to dogs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Archaeology, Leiden University, Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Luc
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7894-0073
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Janssens
authors.affiliation: Service of Prehistory, University of Liège, quai Roosevelt, 1, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Evolutionary Ecology, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Van Dongen
keywords: Canis lupus chanco; Coronoid process; Dog; Domestication; Mandible; Morphology; Wolf