Controlling Inherited Biases and Analytical Procedures for the Zooarchaeologist: A Case Study from the Central Anatolian site of Kaman-Kalehӧyük

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Zooarchaeologists have tackled numerous questions to reveal human-animal interactions in time and space. In addition to depending on animals for their primary products, that is meat, and secondary products such as milk, muscle-power, and wool, humans have used animals to establish and legitimize status and power, and to represent ideologies, identities, and ethnicity. In order to address such abstract concepts, however, zooarchaeologists need to first identify potential sources of inherited bias in their methodology and analytical procedures. Previously, we identified a serious methodological dilemma, and bias, zooarchaeologists face when sorting artifacts/ecofacts in the field. In our case study, bone artifacts from the Bronze Age (ca. 3000-1200 BCE) site of Kaman Kalehӧyük were separated from the rest of the faunal assemblage; thus, taxa representation and body part percentages and ratios were greatly misrepresented in the faunal record. This paper expands upon that research agenda by analyzing Iron Age archaeological contexts. By examining more material, we aim to determine how significant the changes are with the inclusion of new data when analyzing the distribution of principle taxa and the ratio of body parts. Finally, we probe how these new results affect subsequent interpretations of past human behaviors at the site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53522