Animal Exploitation Choices in Worked Bones at a Portuguese Chalcolithic Village

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Both hunting and agropastoralism were important to the Iberian Peninsular Chalcolithic subsistence economy. However, questions remain about the relative exploitation of wild and domestic fauna. Vila Nova de São Pedro (VNSP) is a Portuguese Chalcolithic village site, first excavated by Eugénio Jalhay and Afonso do Paço from 1936 to 1967 and by the VNSP3000 project from 2017 onwards. Analysis of faunal remains from both periods of excavation by the VNSP3000 project has revealed the presence of both wild and domestic species. Wild taxa at VNSP represent a larger proportion of the faunal material and have greater species diversity than at other Chalcolithic sites in the area, including species such as beaver, lynx, and bear. This presentation will summarize the analysis of worked bone samples from VNSP using Zoology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS). There are many worked bone artifacts from VNSP, but most are not taxonomically identified because of their high degree of modification. This work will allow comparison between the diversity of taxa used for worked bone and that of the full assemblage of faunal remains and may reveal the use of rarer species. These findings reflect the material exploitation choices made by the Chalcolithic people at VNSP.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39779.0