Flatfish in focus: Developing a ZooMS reference database to identify archaeological flatfish on the Pacific Northwest Coast

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Biomolecular Approaches to Human-Animal Interactions Past and Present" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological fish remains provide detailed information on paleoenvironmental conditions, marine anthropogenic impacts, and past human-animal relationships. Fish bones, however, can be challenging to identify to species due to their morphology, the need for comprehensive comparative collections, and destructive taphonomic forces creating fragmentary bone assemblages. On the Pacific Northwest Coast, salmon and herring, two cultural and ecological keystone species, have drawn the attention of many archaeologists, leaving other culturally and environmentally significant fish taxa to often be overlooked. To spotlight one such under-researched group of fish, we constructed a ZooMS reference database to identify archaeological Pacific flatfish, representing species like halibut, flounders, and soles. We confirmed biomarkers for 25 flatfish species endemic to the Northwest Coast, enabling the reliable identification of fragmentary or morphologically indistinct flatfish elements to the species level. In collaboration with xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nation, we demonstrate the efficacy of this database through the analysis of flatfish elements from several archaeological sites in traditional xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory. The ZooMS analysis of flatfish remains across several archaeological contexts will provide insight into the diversity of flatfish caught and consumed by xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, as well as aid the reconstruction of marine ecosystems prior to the advent and ongoing process of colonialism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Global Perspectives on Biomolecular Approaches to Human-Animal Interactions Past and Present

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51257