Efficiently Assessing a Large Collection of “Unidentifiable” Faunal Specimens

Summary

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

Highly fragmented assemblages are challenging for zooarchaeologists. Large numbers of morphologically unidentifiable specimens are time consuming to analyze and may yield little information relevant to project goals. Faced with an assemblage of 50,000 unidentifiable specimens from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, I employed an expeditious analytical procedure. I subsampled the assemblage to first develop a method for providing approximate specimen counts based on bone weight, and then undertake detailed taphonomic assessments. Through an examination of diaphysis fractures, I identified evidence that bone marrow extraction and weathering contributed to the large number of unidentifiable specimens. This approach allowed me to efficiently quantify and explore the taphonomy of the assemblage. It requires little specialized equipment and can assist zooarchaeologists working with limited budgets and tight time constraints to analyze large assemblages.

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): 35705.0