Zooarchaeology (Other Keyword)
1,176-1,200 (1,354 Records)
Domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) husbandry at Chaco Canyon has been the subject of considerable debate. Previous research has argued, among other things, that turkeys were rare in the Canyon (Akins 1985); that turkeys first were a source of feathers for ritual and ceremonial activities, and only later treated as food (Akins 1985; Badenhorst et al. 2016; Windes 1977); that local wild turkeys were not present in Chaco Canyon and domestic turkeys were imported from the Four Corners region...
Turkey Provisioning, Exchange, and the Isotopic Zooarchaeology of Social Transformations in the Mesa Verde Region (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Isotopic and Animal aDNA Analyses in the Southwest/Northwest" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Changes in resource acquisition patterns are important components of larger social transformations, including shifts in the source areas and transport patterns of important animal resources. In the Mesa Verde region, increasing population aggregation and shifting settlement locations from AD 750 through 1225 also increased...
The Turtlers of Early 18th Century Grand Cayman (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Innovative Approaches to Finding Agency in Objects" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The turtle fishery off the coast of the Cayman Islands was a well-known supplier of meat for mariners involved in the trans-Atlantic trade of the 18th century. Salted and barreled or taken aboard live, these reptiles played a vital role in shipboard foodways. The Turtle Bone Site, located on the north side of Grand Cayman’s...
Turtles all the Way Down: Tracing Long-Term Genetic Change in Southern Caribbean Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) Populations and Applications to Modern Conservation (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Caribbean sea turtle histories are deeply intertwined with past human activities. While modern DNA offers insight into impacts of recent stressors, to fully support sea turtle recovery we must account for activities acting on populations prior to modern baselines. Ancient DNA (aDNA) research offers a novel method for identifying timing and rate of change...
Two Valleys Archaeology in an Environmental Humanities Context (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Climate and Heritage in the North Atlantic: Burning Libraries" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This talk discusses the challenges of connecting the currently ongoing Two Valleys Project in Iceland to various scales of research on human ecodynamics of the past and global challenges we face in our time. This interdisciplinary project expands on previous research into human-nature interactions within various marine and...
Uncertainty Specialists: A Diversity of Late Upper Paleolithic Adaptations in the Dinaric Alps (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Research into the Late Pleistocene of Europe" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper looks at the results of recent research at several late Upper Palaeolithic sites in the area of the Dinaric Alps within the Eastern Adriatic catchment zone in present-day Montenegro and Herzegovina. For the first time in this region, a long-term persistence of the phenomenon of broad spectrum dietary strategy...
Under the Scope: Nondestructive Methods of Analyzing Perishable Artifacts in Legacy Collections (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research presents the macroscopic and microscopic attributes of hair and feathers from the artifact assemblage of North Fork Cave #1, better known as Mummy Cave (48PA201) in Park County, Wyoming. The results of this research enable us to better understand the mammalian and avian resources exploited during the Archaic and Prehistoric periods in the Greater...
The Under-Represented Mullet in SW Florida’s Archaeological Assemblages (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mullets (Mugil spp.), especially the striped mullet (Mugil cephalus), because of their predictable mass-schooling behavior, are obvious candidates as having been surplus food for the socio-politically complex, Calusa fisher-gatherer-hunters. Moreover, López de Velasco, writing in about 1570, stated that there was in southwest Florida waters a "great fishery of...
Understanding Animal Use at the Wetland Maya Site of Chulub (2018)
Reconstructions of ancient Maya animal use often emphasize the importance of terrestrial species, such as deer, to the overall diet. While these species played an important role, much less attention has been paid to the use of aquatic resources despite the presence of resource rich perennial wetlands in the Maya lowlands. To further understand this crucial area of the Maya-environment relationship, we investigated the site of Chulub located in the Western Lagoon Wetlands of Belize. This site...
Understanding Changes in Lagomorph Proportions within the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster, Northeast Arizona (2018)
Lagomorphs (rabbits and hares) were a critically important dietary resource for inhabitants of the pre-contact American Southwest, where they typically dominate faunal assemblages. It is useful to examine proportions between genera of lagomorphs—specifically, cottontails (Syvilagus sp.) and jackrabbits (Lepus sp.)—to elucidate information about the past environment and how it might have changed in response to human actions. Based on habitat preferences and predator evasion strategies, the...
Understanding Livestock in Political Economies in West Africa: Archaeological Insights Inspired by the Legacy of Richard Redding (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Breaking the Mold: A Consideration of the Impacts and Legacies of Richard W. Redding" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Amongst his many intellectual contributions, Richard Redding was a leading scholar in the use of zooarchaeology, specifically the production, distribution, redistributio,n and consumption of animal products, to understand political economies. Through systemic approaches, Redding was able to explore the...
Understanding Patterns of Indigenous White-tailed Deer (*Odocoileus virginianus) Exploitation in the North Carolina Piedmont Using Strontium (87Sr/86Sr) Isotope Analysis (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Bones to Human Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The varied responses by Native communities within the American Southeast to European colonization resulted in a period of dynamic social, economic, and political change. One such response to the colonial encounter was the development of a robust trade in the skins of white-tailed deer. In this paper, I focus on the effects of the deerskin trade on the deer...
Understanding Pleistocene and Early Holocene faunal exploitation at Barrow Island, North-west Australia (2017)
Barrow Island, located 50km off the modern Pilbara coast, contains the longest and richest archaeological record of Pleistocene coastal settlement in northern Australia. During lowered sea levels of the Pleistocene, the island was part of the greater Australian continent. Archaeological survey has revealed an array of sites in cave, rockshelter and open air-settings. The most diverse record has been recovered from a large limestone cave, where repeated visits began at c. 50 ka BP and continued...
Understanding Reindeer Riding in the Archaeological Record of Northeast Asia through Ethnoarchaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Long-Term Pastoral Dynamics: Methods, Theories, Stories" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the innovation of reindeer transport transformed societies across Northeast Asia, tracing the prehistory of reindeer domestication and riding has proven particularly challenging. Recent cross-species archaeozoological research has built an expanded paleopathological toolkit, but to date there are few mechanisms...
Understanding the Interplay between Domesticate Choice and the Environment: The Case of the Humble Australian Sheep (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestication could be described as a drawn out, nuanced dance between humans and animals – a dance that shapes not just the animal actors – but the physical, cultural and economic environment of all the players. Recent examples of this effect abound in areas colonized by Europeans, particularly those with drastically...
Unearthing the History of Mokil Atoll: A Fresh Perspective through Zooarchaeological Exploration (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There has been a dearth of research on atolls in the central-eastern part of the Caroline Islands, especially from a zooarchaeological perspective. We present the first zooarchaeological analysis for Mokil atoll, which has been continuously inhabited since 1700-1500 cal. BP. The material was excavated in 2013 on the islet of Kahlap. The majority of the...
The Unexpected Fauna of Pleistocene Saudi Arabia and the Earliest Evidence of Hominin Butchery Activity (2018)
Work in the Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia, has been fundamental for establishing the importance of the Arabian Peninsula for Pleistocene hominin populations and their dispersals out of Africa. Recent palaeontological and archaeological exploration in the Western Nefud Desert has uncovered numerous fossiliferous palaeolake deposits and associated archaeology. Fossil assemblages include taxa with both African and Eurasian affinities and indicate a greater diversity in large mammals than resides in...
Ungulate Bone Fat Exploitation at the Adoption of Horticulture in Western Iowa (2017)
Fat in the form of bone marrow and/or grease is a valued resource among foragers, and is more frequently exploited during times of subsistence stress. Risk-reduction in the face of resource stress is one potential theory for why prehistoric people incorporated horticulture into existing hunting and gathering practices. During the Woodland period (2800-1350 BP), the tallgrass prairie region of western Iowa provided a rich environment where numerous prey species could be found, including bison and...
Unlikely Allies: Modern Wolves and the Diets of Pre-contact Domestic Dogs (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New and Ongoing Research on the North American Plains and Rocky Mountains" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Assumptions of prehistoric domestic dogs as scavengers has been pervasive in archaeology and beyond. This project clarifies these assumption by investigating the dietary behavior of prehistoric domestic dogs via dental microwear data or features on the tooth surface that indicate types of food consumed. In order...
Unnoticed All His Worth, a Dog Burial at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (2017)
One dog (Canis lupus familiaris) was recovered from a six-sided wooden coffin among the human interments identified during the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery Removal Project of 2013. Milwaukee County used the cemetery (ca. 1880 – 1920) to bury people who died at institutions located on the country grounds or to bury individuals with survivors unable to afford burial elsewhere. The cemetery is contemporaneous with the establishment of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to...
"Unsavory the qualities of that soup": Diet and Foodways at Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine, East Granby, Connecticut, 1790-1819 (2015)
The Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office contracted AHS, Inc. to conduct a multi-phase archaeological survey at the National Historic Landmark Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine in East Granby, Connecticut, prior to planned repairs to the ca. 1790 prison guardhouse. Beginning in 1773, the Old New-Gate copper mine was used as a prison and criminals, Tories, and POWs were incarcerated there during the Revolutionary War. In 1790 Old New-Gate became the first state prison in the U.S. and...
Unusual Marks Found On Giant Land Tortoise Remains in Hillsborough River (1983)
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Updating and Reevaluating Faunal Datasets from Quina Mousterian Levels at Jonzac and Pech de l'Azé IV by Incorporating Screened Materials (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Current Zooarchaeology: New and Ongoing Approaches" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Logistical challenges of managing large zooarchaeological projects mean that researchers must often conduct faunal analyses in phases and implement sampling strategies, including studying subsamples that do not fully incorporate screened materials. However, screened portions may contain specimens that can provide depth to studies of...
Updating the Late Pleistocene Record of the Willamette Valley, Oregon (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Near the end of the Pleistocene, 35 genera of mostly large mammals became extinct in North America, yet the cause of these extinctions remains debated. The Willamette Valley in western Oregon boasts a robust record of up to nine megafaunal taxa (*Mammuthus, Mammut, Equus, Paramylodon, Megalonyx,...
Urbanisation and Animal Husbandry in Ancient Western Europe: How Territoriality Affects Negatively Husbandry Productivity (2016)
Mobility is key to the survival and adaptation of human and animal populations. In all cases, having the ‘right of way’ is necessary to move across territories. How was it in the past? How humans decided about mobility in the context of demographic growth and increase of social complexity that occurred in Europe in the first millennium BC? Strontium isotopic ratios are a powerful tool for investigating mobility in the past. This paper offers a review of strontium isotopic ratios for Western...