More than a Source of Data: The Benefits of Active Collaboration between Macrofaunal and Specialist Analyses at Neolithic Ҫatalhöyük

Summary

The faunal remains excavated by the Ҫatalhöyük Research Project are notoriously voluminous, making them the focus of many specialist analyses over the course of the recent project. Stable isotopic data from zooarchaeological remains have long been used to inform paleoecology and past human dietary patterns. Zooarchaeological isotopic data have increasingly been used to revolutionize our understanding of past herding strategies, particularly in early herding contexts like Neolithic Ҫatalhöyük. The resulting large datasets from zooarchaeological and isotopic studies at Ҫatalhöyük have provided crucial data for understanding characterizing past diets, herding systems, and ecologies. However, these datasets have been largely fragmented from one another by the initial structure of the Ҫatalhöyük Research Project and its faunal database, as well as the logistics of coordinating in-field and off-field research agendas. This paper discusses the potential for more concerted integration between stable isotopic and zooarchaeological data by demonstrating how consideration of an animal’s age and sex can help restructure stable isotopic comparisons of animal diet to reflect past herding systems. The opportunities afforded by this integration are broadly applicable and help reframe the isotopic analysis of zooarchaeological data from a source of background, ecological data towards an avenue for investigating past social dynamics.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Continuity and Change, Two Decades of Excavation and Research at Çatalhöyük

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16775