Professor Matthew Hill received a grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research's Arts and Humanities Initiative (AHI) on his project titled "A World Teeming with Dogs: Dogs at the Intersection of White Colonizers, Enslaved Africans, and Native Americans in Colonial Virginia." Dr. Hill will explore human-animal relationships and the influence of human social structures by studying the archaeological remains of 40 dogs from seven sites occupied by white landowners and enslaved people in colonial-era Virginia. From the 17th to 19th century, white Europeans, European Americans, native North Americans, and enslaved African people in Virginia lived in close geographic proximity but were separated by race, class, and culture. Numerous dogs lived among these distinct communities and were imagined to be separated along the same boundaries as their human companions. Hill will analyze genetics, dietary isotopes and bone size and shape to determine whether dogs from White European American and enslaved African communities mated with each other, ate different foods, were of different sizes and shapes, and had different life histories.