A Comparative Archaeological Exploration of Question-Oriented Sampling Strategies to Integrate ZooMS into Zooarchaeological Methods

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) collagen fingerprinting is increasingly applied to prehistoric faunal collections—especially highly fragmented and/or altered ones—to tackle questions regarding diet, subsistence, and hunting strategies. When mass sampling archaeological bones (i.e., hundreds of bone fragments), ZooMS is a powerful tool to improve overall taxonomic identification of the indeterminate fraction of faunal assemblages. However, sampling many bone fragments at random entails certain risks regarding methodological biases and collagen preservation for such specialized and often costly analysis. Question-oriented sampling strategies can help refine specific dimensions of our reconstructions about past subsistence behaviors. In addition, in collections showing poor collagen preservation, using a portable FTIR instrument can be an effective and cost-efficient in-field pre-screening method for ZooMS. We present here two case studies from different chronological, geographic, and taphonomic contexts (i.e., NE North American Woodland open-air site and NW Italian Paleolithic rockshelter site) to explore how to develop sampling strategies adapted to different research questions and archaeological contexts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35785.0