[Overview]

reading Dogs are one of the most common vertebrates in the Mesoamerican archaeological record. It is common to find their bones, craniums, and even complete skeletons associated with many past cultural landscapes: in domestic middens, housing units, activity area, and burials, or as offerings with a high symbolic value. This distribution, together with their status as domestic animals, provides them with enormous potential as information sources on the life pattern of those who utilized them in the past. For this reason their presence in the archaeological context requires, and deserves, a detailed study of their remains, from being certain of proper identification to the causes that preceded death. This formation should be correlated with that gathered form other archaeological materials such as ceramics, lithics, and bones from other animal species. The result permits the definition of aspects such as the time of the year during which a dog remain-related event took place, migratory phenomena related to humans and associated dogs, cultural influences, commercial activities, and the differential use of this vertebrate as a natural resource over the centuries.