Getting to Know the Neighbors: Commensal Insights into Human-Ecosystem Dynamics

Summary

Advances in zooarchaeological method and theory, increased attention to the recovery and analysis of microfaunal remains, and multidisciplinary collaborative research have generated increasingly nuanced understandings of past human-animal relationships. This paper provides a brief introduction to archaeological investigations of commensal fauna, highlighting the myriad ways that research focused on the commensal niche sheds new light on past societies and ecosystems. A case study from Makangale Cave (Pango la kijiji Makangale), Pemba Island, Zanzibar illustrates the utility of small commensal fauna for understanding processes of human niche construction and paleoecological transformations. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data derived from the human-transported, omnivorous black rat (Rattus rattus) and house mouse (Mus musculus) reflect changes in nutrient flows throughout anthropogenic food webs, as well as resource partitioning between two species occupying the human niche. Explicit focus on these often-ignored commensal taxa provides new tools for investigating human-environment dynamics in the past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22188