Isophoric News · Sunday, October 18, 2026
Archaeologists find 1,200-year-old mummified hairless dog at Peru's Castillo de Huarmey
Archaeologists have found the naturally mummified remains of a male dog at least 1,200 years old at Castillo de Huarmey, a Wari Empire site on Peru's northern coast, according to a Dartmouth College release published by ScienceDaily. Excavations there produced 341 dog bone specimens representing at least 19 individuals, and the team identified them as Peruvian hairless dogs partly because they were missing teeth that had never erupted, a trait the release says is linked to the gene for hairlessness, according to first author Weronika Tomczyk. Some of the dogs were buried near people, including a puppy 6 to 8 weeks old found with an elite craftsperson, while others were among discarded material, and isotope analysis showed most had eaten at least some maize. The findings appear in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
