“I have the skull of an English collie which differs from the gray wolf in the same way as does the setter’s skull; that is, the frontal bones are slightly more concave in the center and a little higher. The jaws are proportionately shorter than the jaws of the setter, and of course shorter than those of the wolf, and the molar teeth are proportionately smaller.
“The skull of the collie agrees in size and height and convexity of the frontals with the nearly perfect skull I have from the Damariscotta shell-heap; it also agrees with the teeth with the exception that in my Damariscotta skull the second and third molars are slightly stouter and approach more nearly to the corresponding teeth of the setter.
“Thus, I should say that the Damariscotta shell-heap skull is very close to the English collie, and also very close to the gray wolf. This Damariscotta skull was found very low down in the great shell-heap, and it is unquestionably of prehistoric time, probably centuries before any white man reached this continent. There is, therefore, no possibility of its being a domestic dog brought over by the Whites. The close affinities, in its shape, with the setter, and thus with the gray wolf, lead me to regard it as a domestic dog of the people whose refuse formed that ancient shell-heap; probably a domesticated gray wolf, unless there was some now extinct species of the genus Canis from which this dog was derived, the only prominent difference being in the shorter jaws of the dog.
“I have also three skulls from the ‘ash-pits’ of the ancient cemetery near Madisonville, Ohio. In the contents of about 1,500 of these ash-pits, which we have carefully examined, not a sign of White contact was found; and they are unquestionably of prehistoric time. These three skulls from the ash-pits are slightly smaller than the Damariscotta skull, but agree with it in every other particular.
“I have examined two skulls (in the American Museum of Natural History) found with an Indian skeleton on Staten Island, New York. This burial-place is also of unquestionably prehistoric time. These two dog skulls are of about the same size as those from the Madisonville cemetery, and are of the same character.
“I have two skulls of dogs from the Lake Dwellings, at St. Aubin and Neufchatel, Switzerland, which agree in size with the three above-mentioned from the ash-pits at Madisonville, but differ from them in having the frontals slightly flatter and in having the interparietal crest nearly obliterated. A fourth skull from the Madisonville ash-pits, smaller than the other three, agrees with these Swiss Lake skulls in the latter character.
“I cannot distinguish any important difference between the dog skull you found in the Florida mound and those from the Madisonville ash-pits.
“Thus your Florida skull, while it agrees very closely with the English collie, also agrees, as well, with the other dog skulls which are of unquestionably prehistoric time. The condition of the bones indicates considerable antiquity and unless objects belonging to the Whites were found associated with the bones of the dog, or the bones themselves were found near the surface, and you have evidence that they belong to an intrusive burial, I should have no hesitation whatever in considering your Florida skull as that of a domestic dog of the people who built the mound.”
Three varieties of dog are found with the dead in the Necropolis of Ancon, Peru, one of which strongly resembles the collie.[11]