An Introduction to Animal Matters

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Animal Matters: Ethics in Zooarchaeology from Discovery to Display" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As in other disciplines, ethics has become a central topic amongst zooarchaeologists; however, many of these conversations occur between a small handful of individuals. Here, we aim to bring together diverse zooarchaeologists in a large, communal venue to highlight the ethical considerations we face as a discipline. We hope to discuss important questions, such as: When/why do we divide human from animal? What is the value of animal-centric research? How can we work towards decolonizing our work? What does ethical specimen acquisition and sampling look like? How can we make the most responsible use of our reference collections? And what can the ethically minded zooarchaeology instructor bring to the classroom? These topics, and more, establish the ethical considerations of our field and some possible directions for the future.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Animal Matters: Ethics in Zooarchaeology from Discovery to Display   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51119