Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Zooarchaeological Metadata Analysis Of Animal Domestication In The Neolithic Northern Levant, Ashlyn R. Cartier

University Scholar Projects

This project compiles and examines 17 published faunal assemblages spanning the Epipaleolithic to the Pottery Neolithic in the Northern Levant to uncover early trends in animal management practices. Through a close examination of indices tracking the proportions of low and high-ranked prey, wild versus domestic game, and taxonomic diversity, it is possible to examine the trends in and deduce the approximate timing of the shift toward early animal management practices. To examine the conditions from which this phenomenon emerged, analyses of hunting intensity and taxonomic tradeoffs were implemented. Hunting intensity provides an analysis of low and high-ranked prey to examine …

The Woodcliff Experiment: Zooarchaeological Applications Using A Legacy And Cultural Resource Management (Crm) Faunal Collection., Matthew Zmijewski

Anthropology Department: Theses

Legacy archaeological collections are often underutilized despite their valuable research utility. Archeologists might pass over these collections for research due to the age of recovery, along with the manner in which they were sampled and excavated. This thesis argues that significant archaeological research questions can be answered using these collections. To demonstrate their research potential, the author analyzes past subsistence behaviors and seasonality of occupations using the faunal remains from the Woodcliff site (25SD31). Woodcliff is a A.D. 1650-1750 Protohistoric Pawnee village located in eastern Nebraska. The faunal collection derived from excavations at the site constitute both a legacy and …

Indigenous American Fishing Traditions At The First Spanish Capital Of La Florida: Santa Elena (1566–1587 Ce), South Carolina, Usa, Elizabeth J. Reitz, Chester B. Depratter

Faculty & Staff Publications

Abstract

Few studies of post-Columbian animal economies in the Americas elaborate on the influence of traditional Indigenous knowledge on colonial economies. A vertebrate collection from Santa Elena (1566–87 CE, South Carolina, USA), the original Spanish capital of La Florida, offers the opportunity to examine that influence at the first European-sponsored capital north of Mexico. Santa Elena’s animal economy was the product of dynamic interactions among multiple actors, merging preexisting traditional Indigenous practices, particularly traditional fishing practices, with Eurasian animal husbandry to produce a new cultural form. A suite of wild vertebrates long used by Indigenous Americans living on the southeastern …

The Tijeras Pueblo (La 581) Archaeofaunal Project, Emily Lena Jones, Scott Kirk, Caitlin S. Ainsworth, Asia Alsgaard, Jana Valesca Meyer, Cyler Conrad

Anthropology Datasets

These files contain data generated by the Tijeras Pueblo (LA 581) Archaeofaunal Project, a project of the University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology Zooarchaeology Laboratory between 2011 and the present. This project has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1732622 and by a grant from the Research Allocations Committee of the University of New Mexico.

These data are the basis of the analyses presented in the following publication:

Jones, Emily Lena, Scott Kirk, Caitlin S. Ainsworth, Asia Alsgaard, Jana Valesca Meyer, and Cyler Conrad. 2021. The Community at the Crossroads: Artiodactyl Exploitation and …

Archaeological Analysis In The Information Age: Guidelines For Maximizing The Reach, Comprehensiveness, And Longevity Of Data, Sarah W. Kansa, Levent Atici, Eric C. Kansa, Richard H. Meadow

Anthropology Faculty Research

With the advent of the Web, increased emphasis on “research data management,” and innovations in reproducible research practices, scholars have more incentives and opportunities to document and disseminate their primary data. This article seeks to guide archaeologists in data sharing by highlighting recurring challenges in reusing archived data gleaned from observations on workflows and reanalysis efforts involving datasets published over the past 15 years by Open Context. Based on our findings, we propose specific guidelines to improve data management, documentation, and publishing practices so that primary data can be more efficiently discovered, understood, aggregated, and synthesized by wider research communities.

Exploring Ecodynamics Of Coastal Foragers Using Integrated Faunal Records From Čḯxwicən Village (Strait Of Juan De Fuca, Washington, U.S.A.), Virginia L. Butler, Sarah K. Campbell, Kristine M. Bovy, Michael A. Etnier

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Extensive 2004 excavation of Čḯxwicən (pronounced ch-WHEET-son), traditional home of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in northwest Washington State, U.S.A., documented human occupation spanning the last 2700 years with fine geo-stratigraphic control and 102 radiocarbon samples. Remains of multiple plankhouses were documented. Occupation spans large-magnitude earthquakes, periods of climate change, and change in nearshore habitat. Our project began in 2012 as a case study to explore the value of human ecodynamics in explaining change and stability in human-animal relationships on the Northwest Coast through analysis of faunal and geo-archaeological records. Field sampling was explicitly designed to allow for integration …

Using Bone Fragmentation Records To Investigate Coastal Human Ecodynamics: A Case Study From Čḯxwicən (Washington State, Usa), Kristine M. Bovy, Michael A. Etnier, Virginia L. Butler, Sarah K. Campbell, Jennie Deo Shaw

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Coastal shell middens are known for their generally excellent preservation and abundant identifiable faunal remains, including delicate fish and bird bones that are often rare or poorly preserved at non-shell midden sites. Thus, when we began our human ecodynamics research project focused on the fauna from Čḯxwicən (45CA523, pronounced ch-WHEET-son), a large ancestral village of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, located on the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Port Angeles, Washington (USA), we anticipated generally high levels of bone identifiability. We quickly realized that the mammal bones were more fragmented and less …

Ecospaces Of The Iberian Peninsula At The Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition: A View From The Archaeofaunal Record [Dataset], Emily Lena Jones, Milena M. Carvalho

Anthropology Datasets

No abstract provided.

Size Estimation Of Pre‐Columbian Caribbean Fish, Sandrine Grouard, Sophia Perdikaris, Nídia Cristina Espíndola Rodrigues, Irvy R. Quitmyer

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In this contribution, we present a methodological approach to the identification of pre‐Columbian Caribbean fisheries and examine the interrelationships of exploitation according to size for eight fish families, in a diachronic perspective for the Lesser Antilles. Based on the principles of size and growth allometries, biometric repositories have been reconstructed for modern families that represent different ecological environments: Holocentridae, Serranidae, Carangidae, Lutjanidae, Haemulidae, Scaridae, Acanthuridae, and Scombridae. The measured fish bone elements were selected based on their robustness and potential for recovery at archaeological sites. This resulted in a sample size totaling 563 modern osteological specimens, which provided reconstructed standard, …

Revisiting The Vasco-Cantabrian Solutrean: The Archaeofaunal Record [Dataset], Emily Lena Jones

Anthropology Datasets

No abstract provided.

From Icon Of Empire To National Emblem: New Evidence For The Fallow Deer Of Barbuda, Sophia Perdikaris, Allison Bain, Sandrine Grouard, Karis Baker, Edith Gonzalez, A. Rus Hoelzel, Holly Miller, Reaksha Persaud, Naomi Sykes

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Barbuda and Antigua’s national animal is the fallow deer, Dama dama dama, a species native to the eastern Mediterranean that has been transported around the world by people during the last 8000 years. The timing and circumstances by which fallow deer came to be established on Barbuda are currently uncertain but, by examining documentary, osteological and genetic evidence, this paper will consider the validity of existing theories. It will review the dynamics of human–Dama relationships from the 1500s AD to the present day and consider how the meaning attached to this species has changed through time: from a …

Zooarchaeology Of The Scandinavian Settlements In Iceland And Greenland: Diverging Pathways, Thomas Mcgovern, Konrad Smairowski, George Hambrecht, Seth Brewington, Ramona Harrison, Megan Hicks, Frank J. Feeley, Brenda Prehal, James Woollett

Publications and Research

The Scandinavian Viking Age and Medieval settlements of Iceland and Greenland have been subject to zooarchaeological research for over a century, and have come to represent two classic cases of survival and collapse in the literature of long-term human ecodynamics. The work of the past two decades by multiple projects coordinated through the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) cooperative and by collaborating scholars has dramatically increased the available zooarchaeological evidence for economic organization of these two communities, their initial adaptation to different natural and social contexts, and their reaction to Late Medieval economic and climate change. This summary paper provides …

Medieval Iceland, Greenland, And The New Human Condition: A Case Study In Integrated Environmental Humanities, Steven Hartman, A.E.J. Ogilvie, Jón Haukur Ingimundarson, A.J. Dugmore, George Hambrecht, Thomas Mcgovern

Publications and Research

This paper contributes to recent studies exploring the longue durée of human impacts on island landscapes, the impacts of climate and other environmental changes on human communities, and the interaction of human societies and their environments at different spatial and temporal scales. In particular, the paper addresses Iceland during the medieval period (with a secondary, comparative focus on Norse Greenland) and discusses episodes where environmental and climatic changes have appeared to cross key thresholds for agricultural productivity. The paper draws upon international, interdisciplinary research in the North Atlantic region led by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) and the Nordic …

Was It For Walrus? Viking Age Settlement And Medieval Walrus Ivory Trade In Iceland And Greenland, Karen M. Frei, Ashley N. Coutu, Konrad Smiarowski, Ramona Harrison, Christian K. Madsen, Jette Arneborg, Robert Frei, Gardar Guðmundsson, Søren M. Sindbækg, James Woollett, Steven Hartman, Megan Hicks, Thomas Mcgovern

Publications and Research

Walrus-tusk ivory and walrus-hide rope were highly desired goods in Viking Age north-west Europe. New finds of walrus bone and ivory in early Viking Age contexts in Iceland are concentrated in the south-west, and suggest extensive exploitation of nearby walrus for meat, hide and ivory during the first century of settlement. In Greenland, archaeofauna suggest a very different specialized long-distance hunting of the much larger walrus populations in the Disko Bay area that brought mainly ivory to the settlement areas and eventually to European markets. New lead isotopic analysis of archaeological walrus ivory and bone from Greenland and Iceland offers …

Stable Isotope And Ancient Dna Analysis Of Dog Remains From Cathlapotle (45cl1), A Contact-Era Site On The Lower Columbia River, Kenneth M. Ames, Michael P. Richards, Camilla F. Speller, Dongya Y. Yang, R. Lee Lyman, Virginia L. Butler

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study reports ancient DNA (aDNA) and stable isotope analyses of eight dog skeletal elements from the Cathlapotle site on the Lower Columbia River of the western United States. The aDNA analysis confirmed the elements as dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Two haplotypes were found, both of which group within dog Clade A, and have patchy distributions to the north in British Columbia and as far south as Teotihuacan (Mexico). The isotopic analysis showed that the dogs’ dietary protein was derived almost exclusively from marine sources. Lower Columbia River ethnohistoric accounts and Cathlapotle zooarchaeological records indicate that while marine fish were …

Explaining Prehistoric Variation In The Abundance Of Large Prey: A Zooarchaeological Analysis Of Deer And Rabbit Hunting Along The Pecho Coast Of Central California, Brian F. Codding, Judith F. Porcasi, Terry L. Jones

Social Sciences

Three main hypotheses are commonly employed to explain diachronic variation in the relative abundance of remains of large terrestrial herbivores: (1) large prey populations decline as a function of anthropogenic overexploitation; (2) large prey tends to increase as a result of increasing social payoffs; and (3) proportions of large terrestrial prey are dependent on stochastic fluctuations in climate. This paper tests predictions derived from these three hypotheses through a zooarchaeological analysis of eleven temporal components from three sites on central California’s Pecho Coast. Specifically, we examine the trade-offs between hunting rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.) and deer (Odocoileus hemionus) …

Archaeological Evidence For Resilience Of Pacific Northwest Salmon Populations And The Socioecological System Over The Last ~7,500 Years, Sarah K. Campbell, Virginia L. Butler

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Archaeological data on the long history of interaction between indigenous people and salmon have rarely been applied to conservation management. When joined with ethnohistoric records, archaeology provides an alternative conceptual view of the potential for sustainable harvests and can suggest possible social mechanisms for managing human behavior. Review of the ~7,500-year-long fish bone record from two subregions of the Pacific Northwest shows remarkable stability in salmon use. As major changes in the ecological and social system occurred over this lengthy period, persistence in the fishery is not due simply to a lack of perturbation, but rather indicates resilience in the …

Three Decades In The Cold And Wet: A Career In Northern Archaeology, Sophia Perdikaris, George Hambrecht, Ramona Harrison

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Thomas H. McGovern has been a pioneering researcher in the North Atlantic region for most of the past 40 years. He has taken his specialty in zooarchaeology beyond counting bones to actually addressing questions about human environment interactions and human response to extreme environmental events. A prolific writer and researcher with a multitude of publications and an impressive funding record, McGovern has always been a proponent of multidisciplinarity and international collaboration. His vision resulted in the creation of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) that currently has more than 400 scientific partners and has been leading projects throughout the Circum …

The Shifting Baseline Of Northern Fur Seal Ecology In The Northeast Pacific Ocean, Seth D. Newsome, Michael A. Etnier, Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, Donald L. Phillips, Marcel Van Tuinen, Elizabeth A. Hadley, Daniel P. Costa, Douglas J. Kennett, Tom P. Guilderson, Paul L. Koch

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Historical data provide a baseline against which to judge the significance of recent ecological shifts and guide conservation strategies, especially for species decimated by pre-20th century harvesting. Northern fur seals (NFS; Callorhinus ursinus) are a common pinniped species in archaeological sites from southern California to the Aleutian Islands, yet today they breed almost exclusively on offshore islands at high latitudes. Harvest profiles from archaeological sites contain many unweaned pups, confirming the presence of temperate-latitude breeding colonies in California, the Pacific Northwest, and the eastern Aleutian Islands. Isotopic results suggest that prehistoric NFS fed offshore across their entire range, that …

The Destruction Of Skeletal Elements By Carnivores: The Growth Of A General Model For Skeletal Element Destruction And Survival In Zooarchaeological Assemblages, Naomi Cleghorn, Curtis W. Marean

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Publications

In the 1960s, Brain published on a series of taphonomic studies in which he observed the destruction of goat bones by pastoralists and domestic dogs. Those studies were notable and novel for a variety of reasons: 1) the attempt to control for complex parameters through the use of what we now recognize as experimental and naturalistic actualism, 2) documentation of the destructive impact on skeletal element abundance by secondary carnivore consumers, and 3) the attempt to understand the mechanical aspects of this process, and thus establish the foundation for justifiable uniformitarianism. This work set the stage for a proliferation of …

A Fishing Farm In The West Fjords Of Iceland: A Preliminary Report Of The Archaeofauna From Gjögur, Yekaterina Krivogorskaya, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

The date for the onset of full scale commercial fisheries in Iceland remains somewhat controversial, but thus far the earliest radiocarbon dated seasonal fishing station (11th- 13th century) is in NW Iceland’s Strandasýsla County at Akurvík. This paper presents a preliminary report of the ongoing analysis of the large archaeofauna from the farm mound at Gjögur, 3 km from Akurvík, places the site of Gjögur in the wider context of the NW region of Iceland by comparing the site with the Akurvík archaeofauna, and outlines new methodologies of reconstructing live fish size and age based on recovered fish bones. Although …

Fishing Booths And Fishing Strategies In Medieval Iceland: An Archaeofauna From The [Site] Of Akurvík, North-West Iceland, Colin Amundsen, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Yekaterina Krivogorskaya, Matthew Brown, Konrad Smiarowski, Shaye Storm, Salena Modugno, Malgorzata Frik, Monica Koczela

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Excavations in 1990 in North-West Iceland documented a stratified series of small turf structures and associated midden deposits at the eroding beach at Akurvík which date from the 11th–13th to the 15th–16th centuries AD. The site reflects a long series of small discontinuous occupations, probably associated with seasonal fishing. The shell sand matrix had allowed excellent organic preservation, and an archaeofauna of more than 100,000 identifiable fragments was recovered. The collections are dominated by fish, mainly Atlantic cod, but substantial amounts of whale bone suggest extensive exploitation of strandings or active whaling. This paper briefly summarizes the excavation results, presents …

Puffins, Pigs, Cod, And Barley: Palaeoeconomy At Undir Junkarinsfløtti, Sandoy, Faroe Islands, Mike J. Church, Símun V. Arge, Seth Brewington, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Jim M. Woollett, Sophia Perdikaris, Ian T. Lawson, Gordon T. Cook, Colin Amundsen, Ramona Harrison, Yekaterina Krivogorskaya, Elaine Dunbar

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

This paper reports on the zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical remains from the initial season of excavations at the Norse period site at Undir Junkarinsfløtti in the Faroe islands. These remains represent the first zooarchaeological analysis undertaken for the Faroes and only the third archaeobotanical assemblage published from the islands. The excavated deposits are described and the key findings from the palaeoenvironmental remains highlighted within the context of the wider North Atlantic environmental archaeology of the Norse period.

An Interim Report Of A Viking-Age & Medieval Archaeofauna From Undir Junkarinsfløtti, Sandoy, Faroe Islands, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Colin Amundsen, Sophia Perdikaris, Ramona Harrison, Yekaterina Krivogorskaya

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Cooperative international excavations at the site of Undir Junkarinsfløtti (27020) in the village of Sandur on the island of Sandoy, Faroe Islands in May 2003 recovered a stratified bone - rich midden deposit extending from the Viking Age to the early medieval period. The animal bone collection contains domestic mammals (cattle, sheep, dog, goat, and pig) and substantial amounts of fish (mainly cod), birds (mainly puffin and guillemot), and shellfish (mainly limpet). While the current collection has the archaeological limitations inherent in column samples, it suggests persistence of substantial pig keeping into the 13th c, and strongly indicates a sustainable …

Coping With Hard Times In Nw Iceland: Zooarchaeology, History, And Landscape Archaeology At Finnbogastaðir In The 18th Century, Ragnar Edvarsson, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Noah Zagor

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

During a cooperative archaeological project in NW Iceland (Strandasýsla) involving the Icelandic National Museum and Hunter College of the City University of New York.1990 season, a small rescue excavation at the site of Finnbogastaðir generated a quantifiable collection of animal bones dating to the early modern period, mainly to the 18th century. The 18th c was a period of hardship in much of Iceland, with widespread tenantry, adverse climate, and degradation of many terrestrial landscapes posing severe challenges to poor farmers- perhaps most intensely in the Vestfirðir. The animal bone collection from Finnbogastaðir reflects a multi-stranded subsistence economy involving seals, …

Report Of Animal Bones From Selhagi, Mývatn District, Northern Iceland, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2001 the FSl / NABO project Landscapes of Settlement in Northern Iceland collected animal bones from a stratified midden deposit associated with the abandoned site Selhagi on the property of the modern farm Haganes. Selhagi is located in the lushly vegetated lakeshore zone and its environmental setting presents a strong contrast with the eroded uplands to the S of the lake where the early sites at Sveigakot and Hrísheimur are under excavation. Close to both major migratory waterfowl nesting areas and some of the best trout fishing in Iceland, the site would appear to be optimally located for exploitation …

From Chiefly Provisioning To Commercial Fishery: Long-Term Economic Change In Arctic Norway, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Stratified farm mounds with excellent organic preservation in the Lofoten and Vesterålen islands in Arctic Norway provide a long-term record of changing human use of fish. In Arctic Norway, zooarchaeological signatures of intensive dried fish production extend back into the Iron Age, indicating a substantial role for cured cod prior to the beginning of the historical stockfish trade in c. AD 1200. North Norwegian chieftains of the late Iron Age and Viking periods clearly disposed of substantial staple surpluses of stockfish as well as the better documented prestige goods (furs and ivory). A comparative study of substantial collections spanning the …

Regional Zooarchaeology And Global Change: Problems And Potentials, Thomas Amorosi, James Woollett, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Zooarchaeology is a potentially critical tool for the reconstruction of past regional landscapes. The subfield is increasingly being asked to contribute to long-term studies of human interaction with the environment associated with national and international investigations of past and future global change. Intersite comparison of animal bone collections (archaeofaunas) is central to such regional approaches. However, zooarchaeologists have identified many factors of deposition, attrition, recovery, and analysis that might appear to make such comparisons problematic. Using selected examples drawn from the North Atlantic and Eastern Arctic, this paper suggests that, while intersite comparison is not a trivial problem, it may …