Did disease constrain the spread of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) into Sub-Saharan Africa

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6042322
AutoresPeter Mitchell (0000-0002-3112-3578, University of Oxford, autor correspondente)
Ano2015
Volume50
Fascículo1
Páginas92-135
Data de publicação2015-01-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAzania Archaeological Research in Africa (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0067-270X • E-ISSN: 1945-5534
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0067270x.2015.1006441
OpenAlexW2090964541
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas144

Dogs are not native to the African continent and appear to have been introduced there from the Middle East. While they spread relatively swiftly across North Africa — perhaps in association with a pastoralist economy — their expansion south of the Sahara appears to have been much slower and more staggered. Although their rarity in many Sub-Saharan faunal assemblages has sometimes been explained on taphonomic grounds, this paper argues that when they entered Sub-Saharan Africa dogs must have encountered a series of endemic diseases for which native mammalian species (including wild canids) acted as reservoirs. Having reviewed the archaeological evidence for their presence in Africa, it then discusses the challenges posed to dogs by five such diseases: canine tryopanosomiasis, canine babesiosis, African horse sickness, canine monocytic ehrlichiosis and visceral leishmaniasis. The paper concludes by considering possible ways in which the disease constraint model advanced here might be evaluated further and asks whether dogs may themselves have posed health risks to people or livestock and whether disease may also have constrained their expansion into other tropical parts of the world

Biology · Canis · Disease · Geography · Sociology · Veterinary medicine · Zoology · Demography · Ecology · Internal Medicine · Medicine · Vector-Borne Animal Diseases · Viral Infections and Vectors · Zoonotic diseases and public health