Over the course of two summers from 1999 through 2000, a team from the University of Toronto, headed by Gary Crawford, uncovered a dog skeleton that was found among a series of archaeological remains. The site among the Grand River in Ontario Canada, is well known for it's excellent artifacts dating from the early Iroquion era, 700 - 1,100 A.D.

The site is a location were excellent specimens are located due to the quality of the soil. What makes finding the dog skeleton unique is it's general location and it's relative position compared to other objects found in the excavation pit. In the excavation pit, the topmost layer of sediment contained the typical pots, pottery, and stone tools. The next layer contained a large assortment of fish bones stacked in a deep layer. Under the fish remains, the dog skeleton was found.

What is unique and questionable about the dog is both the positioned in which the dog was found, and that there was irregular shaped markings along the jaw bone. The dog was probably a native dog, typical for the time period, and was estimated to be about one and a half years old. Upon further investigation, there appears to be no other documented case of a dog skeleton with cut mark patterns along the jaw bone, and this makes solving the mystery of how this dog died even harder.

In the winter of 2000, a team from the university worked with Arius3D to scan the dog jaw bone, to digitally archive the bone for further study. Eventually, it is hoped that all the bones from the dog can be scanned and a digital mock-up of the skeleton in it's final rest pose could be analyzed and a hypothesis can be made on how the dog died.

Arius3D creates digital imaging solutions that enable organizations to research, present, and share unique physical objects in digital form.

The Arius3D three-dimensional color scanners and the Pointstream imaging software support wide ranging applications in culture and heritage, research, education, and entertainment.

Dog Jaw Bone

Dr. Gary Crawford

Arius3D digital model of dog jaw bone