Technological and Methodological Developments in Approaches to Species Identification: Advancements in Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Zooarchaeology and Technology: Case Studies and Applications" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

ZooMS, or ‘Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry’, is a relatively recently developed method in the field of archaeology, with the ability to identify large numbers of fragmentary animal bone to genus or species level. Most importantly, its advantages over ancient DNA-based approaches of identification are that it can be substantially cheaper to run experimentally, and is more likely to yield higher success rates deeper into the archaeological record and in warmer environments. This presentation will discuss the potential technological developments that ZooMS is amenable to, alongside the range of method development that has occurred over the past decade. In particular, this involves the increasing compatibility with other analytical methods commonly used in archaeological science towards a unified methodology for both isotopic and DNA-based methods, but also developments in bioinformatics approaches to dealing with large numbers of samples and sometimes unknown range of fauna, that will ultimately be needed to best inform questions regarding cultural and ecological relationships between humans and animals. Through several case studies, including those relating to the less frequently analysed faunal groups, such as micromammals, herpetofauna and fish, the potential impact that ZooMS can have on the field of zooarchaeology will be discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Zooarchaeology and Technology: Case Studies and Applications   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23617