R J Losey
Biographic Data
| ID | 7261 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R J Losey |
| GIVEN NAMES | R J |
| FAMILY NAME | Losey |
| SIGNATURE | LOSEY R J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alberta |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3615-8160 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 296 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Long-distance jade exchange, linguistic boundaries, and migration in pre-contact western Canada
Nephrite (jade) was used for over 3000 years in western North America to make ground stone celts, some of which were transported over one thousand kilometers across boundaries of Indigenous languages and ecological regions. We employ archaeometric means to confirm nephrite identification and plot all known archaeological occurrences east of the Rocky Mountains. Nephrite celts are among the most widely dispersed artifacts in pre-contact Canada but…
Multifaceted analysis reveals diet and kinship of Late Pleistocene ‘Tumat Puppies’
Distinguishing early domesticates from their wild progenitors presents a significant obstacle for understanding human-mediated effects in the past. The origin of dogs is particularly controversial because potential early dog remains often lack corroborating evidence that can provide secure links between proposed dog remains and human activity. The Tumat Puppies, two permafrost-preserved Late Pleistocene canids, have been hypothesized to have been…
Multi-level spondylolysis at Egiin Gol
Interpretations from this case study would benefit from a more extensive analysis of spondylolysis, biomechanical stress, and acute trauma on the nomadic pastoral populations of northern Mongolia, including those pre-dating and post-dating the Xiongnu
Naturally polled bovines and other domestic animals at the ritual site Ovootyn Uzuur 1, Lake Khövsgöl, Mongolia
Identifying habitual sled-pulling in dogs through the study of entheseal changes
Ageing dogs and wolves using x-ray micro-computed tomography (μ-CT)
Cranial suture obliteration patterns as an ageing method for dog crania
Most of the fundamental methods for analyzing archaeological dog remains need to be better developed. This is particularly true for methods designed to estimate age at death. Most ageing methods are either destructive and specialized or useful only for identifying juveniles. Cranial suture closure and obliteration patterning are commonly examined to estimate the general age at death of human remains but have seen little use in zooarchaeology. Thi…
An improved age estimation method for caribou and reindeer using tooth eruption and wear
Ageing wolves through crown height measurements and its implications for ageing canids
The one-eyed Elder woman stitches an ornament
The Iamal-Nenets region of Siberia is one of many Arctic areas where women's sewing skills were and are crucial to daily existence. Our article explores archaeological needles and needle cases that were made and used by ancestors of the current Indigenous peoples of this region. We frame our examination of these materials through a discussion of women's sewing bags, which are a symbolic representation of every stitch made by a woman's hands in cr…
A body size approach to understanding Holocene seal hunting at Lake Baikal in Siberia
Entangled with Antlers on the Iamal Peninsula of Arctic Siberia
Indigenous communities living in the Iamal-Nenets region of the Arctic Siberia incorporate reindeer antlers into various aspects of their lives, at times in remarkable ways. This is especially the case for Nenets herding families, who closely interact with domestic reindeer on a daily basis. Antlers for Nenets are not just raw materials for producing tools, but rather a part of their perceptions of time, clothing designs, gendered skills and spac…
Dogs and wolves on the northern plains
Domestication is not an ancient moment of selection for prosociality
Domestication is often portrayed as a long-past event, at times even in archaeological literature. The term domestication is also now applied to other processes, including human evolution. In such contexts, domestication means selection for friendliness or prosociality and the bodily results of such selective choices. Both such perspectives are misleading. Using dogs and modern humans as entry points, this paper explores why conceiving of domesti…
Reindeer Demographics at Iarte VI, Iamal Peninsula, Arctic Siberia
This study focuses on constructing a demographic profile for a large set of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) remains from the Iron Age Iarte VI site on the Iamal Peninsula in Siberia. Iarte VI produced one of the largest reindeer assemblages in the entire Arctic, totalling ∼22,000 specimens. Age assessment is conducted by examining teeth eruption sequences in 686 mandibular fragments. Sex identification is based on analysis of 595 os coxae through vi…
Reindeer Imagery in the Making at Ust’-Polui in Arctic Siberia
The history of reindeer domestication is a critical topic in the study of human-animal relationships across Northern Eurasia. The Iamal-Nenets region of Arctic Siberia, now a global centre of reindeer pastoralism, has been the subject of much recent research on reindeer domestication. However, tracking the beginnings of reindeer domestication in this region and elsewhere in Eurasia has proved challenging. Archaeological imagery is an under-utiliz…
An integrative examination of elk imagery in Middle Holocene Cis-Baikal, Siberia
The variable histories of reindeer scapulae on the Iamal Peninsula of Arctic Siberia
Domestication as Enskilment
Age estimation of archaeological dogs using pulp cavity closure ratios
Storing fish
Analysis of individual animal bodies can provide numerous useful insights in archeology, including how humans provisioned such animals, which in turn informs on a variety of other past behaviors such as human dietary patterns. In this study, we conducted stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analysis of collagen and keratin from four types of tissues from a dog burial at the Ust'-Polui site in the Iamal region of Arctic Russia. Ust'-Po…
Life on the fence line. Early 20th-century life in Ross Acreage
Despite widespread attention to the recent past as an archaeological topic, few archaeologists have attended to the particular social and ecological stakes of one of the most defining material features of contemporary life: the long-term effects of toxic industrial waste. Identifying the present era as the high Capitalocene, this article highlights the contemporary as a period caught between the boom-and-bust cycles of capitalist production and t…
Learning to use atlatls
Dogs were domesticated in the Arctic
Medieval animal management practices at Proezzhaia I
Canids as persons
Prehistoric dietary adaptations among hunter-fisher-gatherers from the Little Sea of Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russian Federation
Palaeolithic and prehistoric dogs and Pleistocene wolves from Yakutia
Fishing ancient Lake Baikal, Siberia
Estimating Body Mass in Dogs and Wolves Using Cranial and Mandibular Dimensions
Previously developed regression formulae for estimating body mass in dogs and wolves based on cranial and mandibular dimensions are evaluated using modern canid specimens of known weight at death. Some of these equations proved reliable, but others have large standard errors of estimate and likely produce unreliable mass estimates. New sets of equations for estimating body mass in dogs and wolves are produced using our datasets, including a set o…
Domestication as Enskilment
Body Mass Estimates in Dogs and North American Gray Wolves Using Limb Element Dimensions
Body mass is a key biometric that is useful in interpreting many aspects of an animal's life history. For many species, including dogs and wolves, methods for estimating body mass are not well developed. This paper assesses the utility of using limb dimensions to predict body mass in dogs and North American wolves. Regression analyses are utilized here to explore the correlations between limb dimensions and body masses of modern dogs and wolves, …
Earthquakes and tsunami as elements of environmental disturbance on the Northwest Coast of North America
Age estimation of archaeological dogs using pulp cavity closure ratios
Life on the fence line. Early 20th-century life in Ross Acreage
Despite widespread attention to the recent past as an archaeological topic, few archaeologists have attended to the particular social and ecological stakes of one of the most defining material features of contemporary life: the long-term effects of toxic industrial waste. Identifying the present era as the high Capitalocene, this article highlights the contemporary as a period caught between the boom-and-bust cycles of capitalist production and t…
Learning to use atlatls
Buried, eaten, sacrificed
Historical Ecology and Biogeography of North Pacific Pinnipeds
Zooarchaeology has the potential to make significant contributions to knowledge of pinniped biogeography of import to both archaeologists and environmental scientists. We analyzed northern fur seal remains found in three archaeological sites located along the outer coast of the Northeast Pacific Ocean: Cape Addington Rockshelter in southeast Alaska, Ts’ishaa on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and the Netarts Sandspit site on the Oregon Coast.…
Storing fish
Analysis of individual animal bodies can provide numerous useful insights in archeology, including how humans provisioned such animals, which in turn informs on a variety of other past behaviors such as human dietary patterns. In this study, we conducted stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analysis of collagen and keratin from four types of tissues from a dog burial at the Ust'-Polui site in the Iamal region of Arctic Russia. Ust'-Po…
Iarte VI and Late Holocene Reindeer Remains from the Iamal Peninsula of Arctic Siberia
Rangifer tarandus is one of the most important animals for indigenous groups living in the Arctic. This significance is particularly the case in the Iamal Peninsula of the Russian Federation. The Iamal Peninsula has produced a substantial archaeological record of human engagement with reindeer during the Late Holocene period. The archaeological site known as Iarte VI, a multihousepit settlement on the open tundra of the peninsula, has produced th…
Multicomponent analyses of a hydatid cyst from an Early Neolithic hunter–fisher–gatherer from Lake Baikal, Siberia
House Remains at the Netarts Sandspit Village, Oregon
Houses and households are a major focus of archaeological research on the Northwest Coast of North America. One of the few sites on the southern Northwest Coast to have multiple houses excavated is Netarts Sandspit Village (35-TI-1). Extensively excavated in the 1950s, few details have been available regarding the form of houses at the site and the chronology of their occupations.Reexamination of field notes,feature forms, and photographs from th…
Late-Holocene Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) harvest at an Oregon coast estuary
Ageing wolves through crown height measurements and its implications for ageing canids
Dogs and wolves on the northern plains
Exploring the use of red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) fruit on the southern Northwest Coast of North America
The one-eyed Elder woman stitches an ornament
The Iamal-Nenets region of Siberia is one of many Arctic areas where women's sewing skills were and are crucial to daily existence. Our article explores archaeological needles and needle cases that were made and used by ancestors of the current Indigenous peoples of this region. We frame our examination of these materials through a discussion of women's sewing bags, which are a symbolic representation of every stitch made by a woman's hands in cr…
Domestication is not an ancient moment of selection for prosociality
Domestication is often portrayed as a long-past event, at times even in archaeological literature. The term domestication is also now applied to other processes, including human evolution. In such contexts, domestication means selection for friendliness or prosociality and the bodily results of such selective choices. Both such perspectives are misleading. Using dogs and modern humans as entry points, this paper explores why conceiving of domesti…
The variable histories of reindeer scapulae on the Iamal Peninsula of Arctic Siberia
Opportunistic Whale Hunting on the Southern Northwest Coast
Two modes of whale use have been documented on the Northwest Coast of North America, namely systematic whale hunting and whale scavenging. Ethnographically, systematic hunting was practiced only by Native groups of southwestern Vancouver Island and the northern Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. This hunting was undertaken with technology specifically designed for the task. Other groups on the Northwest Coast reportedly did not hunt whales bu…
Exploring the use of red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) fruit on the southern Northwest Coast of North America
Late-Holocene Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) harvest at an Oregon coast estuary
House Remains at the Netarts Sandspit Village, Oregon
Houses and households are a major focus of archaeological research on the Northwest Coast of North America. One of the few sites on the southern Northwest Coast to have multiple houses excavated is Netarts Sandspit Village (35-TI-1). Extensively excavated in the 1950s, few details have been available regarding the form of houses at the site and the chronology of their occupations.Reexamination of field notes,feature forms, and photographs from th…
Earthquakes and tsunami as elements of environmental disturbance on the Northwest Coast of North America
Historical Ecology and Biogeography of North Pacific Pinnipeds
Zooarchaeology has the potential to make significant contributions to knowledge of pinniped biogeography of import to both archaeologists and environmental scientists. We analyzed northern fur seal remains found in three archaeological sites located along the outer coast of the Northeast Pacific Ocean: Cape Addington Rockshelter in southeast Alaska, Ts’ishaa on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and the Netarts Sandspit site on the Oregon Coast.…
Haida Gwaii
Haida Gwaii: Human History and Environment from the Time of Loon to the Time of the Iron People. Edited by Daryl W. Fedje and Rolf W. Mathewes. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 2006
Fishing ancient Lake Baikal, Siberia
Opportunistic Whale Hunting on the Southern Northwest Coast
Two modes of whale use have been documented on the Northwest Coast of North America, namely systematic whale hunting and whale scavenging. Ethnographically, systematic hunting was practiced only by Native groups of southwestern Vancouver Island and the northern Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. This hunting was undertaken with technology specifically designed for the task. Other groups on the Northwest Coast reportedly did not hunt whales bu…
Late Holocene Subsistence Practices Among Cis-Baikal Pastoralists, Siberia
Roughly 3000 years ago, nomadic pastoralists began to arrive in the Cis-Baikal region of eastern Siberia. While the archaeological record of these groups is quite extensive, most research on pastoralists here has focused on mortuary traditions while questions about subsistence practices have been left largely unaddressed. Few habitation sites from the late Holocene here contain stratified deposits, and virtually none have been subject to modern e…
Prehistoric dietary adaptations among hunter-fisher-gatherers from the Little Sea of Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russian Federation
Use of ulan-khada bay at lake baikal in the holocene (based on fauna remains)
The article presents the results of studies of faunal remains from the Ulan-Khada multilayered settlement – one of key habitation sites in the Cis-Baikal region providing information for reconstructing environmental and cultural changes during the Holocene. A complete analysis of the fauna assemblage obtained over the course of long-term excavations is given. For the fi rst time, the site's ichthyofauna is described. The mammalian species composi…
Canids as persons
Fish and Fishing in Holocene Cis-Baikal, Siberia
Eastern Siberia's Lake Baikal and its tributaries are productive fisheries, and the region's Holocene archaeological sites confirm that this is a long-standing phenomenon. Recent zooarchaeological investigations of sites here allow Holocene fishing practices to be examined in more detail than was previously possible. Along much of the lake's coast, bathymetry is very steep and the water very cold; here fishing appears to have been supplemental to…
People and Seals at Siberia's Lake Baikal
The seals inhabiting Eastern Siberia's Lake Baikal are involved in a suite of meaningful relationships with local people both in the present and in the distant past. Most people rarely see the seals in their natural habitat, but these animals nonetheless are considered icons of the region, particularly among tourists and the broader general public. Our recent interviews with Baikal seal hunters, most of whom are Buriat, revealed relationships of …
A freshwater old carbon offset in Lake Baikal, Siberia and problems with the radiocarbon dating of archaeological sediments
Multicomponent analyses of a hydatid cyst from an Early Neolithic hunter–fisher–gatherer from Lake Baikal, Siberia
Holocene Seal Imagery in the Lake Baikal Region of Eastern Siberia1
For over 9000 years, seals were a major food source for many groups of foragers living in the Lake Baikal region of Eastern Siberia, as evidenced by the frequency of seal bones in the Holocene sites of that area. This article introduces new representations of seals and summarizes previously known seal depictions. Seal images were rather common in rock art and portable sculpture. Also, Neolithic and Bronze Age foragers used seal bones in manufactu…
Middle Holocene Fishing and Hunting in the Baikal Region of Siberia
This chapter shows how a combination of zooarchaeological and stable isotope evidence documents substantial but variable use of aquatic resources by Middle Holocene foragers inhabiting the Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia. We first outline potential food items—including terrestrial mammals, riverine and lacustrine fish, the Baikal freshwater seal, and some plant foods. Faunal remains exist from both habitation sites and cemeteries. Habitation…
Large canids at the Gravettian Předmostí site, the Czech Republic
Estimating Body Mass in Dogs and Wolves Using Cranial and Mandibular Dimensions
Previously developed regression formulae for estimating body mass in dogs and wolves based on cranial and mandibular dimensions are evaluated using modern canid specimens of known weight at death. Some of these equations proved reliable, but others have large standard errors of estimate and likely produce unreliable mass estimates. New sets of equations for estimating body mass in dogs and wolves are produced using our datasets, including a set o…
Spondylosis deformans in three large canids from the Gravettian Předmostí site
Geochemical Analyses of Marmot Teeth to Evaluate the Potential for Overlapping Foraging Ranges in Two Siberian Human Cemetery Populations
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of human remains from two contemporaneous cemeteries in the Lake Baikal region of Russia indicate similarity in diets among some individuals buried in these two locations. Given that the Middle Holocene cemeteries are only 75 km apart, these dietary data could indicate overlap in foraging ranges between the two human cemetery populations. Incisors from Siberian marmots (Marmota sibirica) are the most ab…
Humans and animals at Bugul'deika II, a Trans-Holocene habitation site on the shore of Lake Baikal, Russia
Ancient DNA analysis of marmot tooth remains from the Shamanka II and Lokomotiv-Raisovet cemeteries near Lake Baikal
Faunal Remains from the Early Complexes of the Sagan-Zaba II Multilayered Habitation Site (9120–7880 cal. BP) in the Cis-Baikal
This article is the first publication to analyze faunal remains from early complexes (layers VII and VI) at the multilayer settlement of Sagan-Zaba II, situated on the western shore of Lake Baikal. We discuss species composition of fauna from the site as well as associated radiocarbon dates, age and sex designations, spatial distribution, and their overall selection as it relates to site seasonality. We address the previously-defi ned potential o…
Archaeology (43 works) · Geography (43 works) · Biology (36 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (31 works) · Ecology (29 works) · Geology (24 works) · Indigenous Studies and Ecology (24 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (20 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (18 works) · Holocene (14 works)