Human-Animal Iteractions in Early Sedentary Societies in the Near East and Northern Africa: The MICROARCHAEODUNG Project

Summary

The MICROARCHAEODUNG project aims to develop, standardize and integrate much-needed holistic interdisciplinary sampling protocols and analytical strategies for multi-proxy studies of livestock dung as an important archaeological material that is routinely overlooked or missed using conventional excavation procedures. MICROARCHAEODUNG integrates state-of-the-art analytical techniques in geoarchaeology, bioarchaeology and biochemistry to enable a robust identification and interpretation of ancient dung remains, their content and context. The project aims to develop these methods firstly in examination of dung in experimental and ethnographical research to provide comparative analytical data-set on the characteristics, preservation and context of modern dung materials, dung-products and depositional contexts. To explore the potential contribution of dung studies for tracing human-animal interactions and the developments of early farming, a selection of archaeological contexts are included from a transect through the Near East, one of the key heartlands in which plants and animals that were later domesticated occur naturally, and from still under-investigated regions of North Africa, a potentially critical area with implications for surrounding regions including the Mediterranean and the Sahara. These case-studies span the critical periods of transformation from ca. 10,000 cal BC to the last centuries BC to delineate human-animal interactions through time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Of Dung and Humans: The Archaeology of Livestock Dung   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 12170