Tracking Ancient Animals to Provide an Archaeological Perspective on Wild Mammal Management, Conservation and ‘Rewilding’

Summary

This is an abstract from the "HumAnE Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Human immigration and biological invasions are high-profile topics in modern politics, but neither are uniquely modern phenomena. Migrations of people, animals and ideas were common in antiquity and are frequently incorporated into expressions of cultural identity. However, the more recent the migration, the more negative modern attitudes are towards them. Native is perceived as positive and 'natural', while 'alien' is attached negatively to both cultural and environmental problems. Decisions about conservation and management are often driven by this perceived native or alien status. The zooarchaeological record offers the potential to establish the bio-cultural history of wild species and model these changing human-animal-environment relationships over millennia.

Using the Easter festival and its associated animals as a case study, this paper explores these dynamics by integrating biomolecular approaches with traditional (zoo)archaeology, art history, and citizen scientist initiatives to investigate the human-mediated dispersal of the brown hare and rabbit in connection with the Easter festival. The cultural, religious and temporal contexts of these ‘alien’ introductions are key factors for challenging widespread negative attitudes towards cultural and biological 'aliens'. This paper demonstrates how archaeological studies integrating faunal remains analysis with genomic and isotopic approaches can provide a foundation for building modern conservation policy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• HumAnE Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23059