This project has received funding from the European Union's EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 under Grant Agreement No 676154 and the Danish National Research Foundation award PROTEIOS (DNRF128). The onsite collection of samples was carried out by staff and students from the University of Aberdeen, volunteer excavators and the residents of Quinhagak. Fieldwork/primary sampling was funded by an AHRC (AH/K006029/1) grant awarded to Rick Knecht (Aberdeen), Kate Britton, and Charlotta Hillerdal (Aberdeen) and an AHRC-LabEx award (AH/N504543/1) to Kate Britton, Rick Knecht (Aberdeen), Keith Dobney (Liverpool), and Isabelle Sidéra (Nanterre). We had logistical and planning support for fieldwork by the Qanirtuuq Incorporated, Quinhagak, Alaska, and the people of Quinhagak, who we also thank for sampling permissions. We thank Prof. Jesper Velgaard Olsen at the Novo Nordisk Center for Protein Research for providing access and resources, which was also funded in part by a donation from the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grant no. NNF14CC0001). We further acknowledge Takumi Tsutaya for valuable insight in implementing the protein extraction protocol and subsequent discussions, and Samantha Preslee for completing the ZooMS extractions and MALDI-TOF analysis in conjunction with the Technology Facility at the University of York.

This dataset contains MALDI-TOF spectral data from bone fragments from within palaeofaeces. Sample names are at the end of the file name and each sample has three replicates.