Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

Fishing, Butchery And Smoking: Salmonids In Northeastern Iceland, Quinn Matthew Habedank

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores the ethnoecology of Northern Iceland from 1880-1920 via the zooarchaeology of salmonid remains. Based on the identification of salmonid bones retrieved from Hofstaðir, the people living at the farm likely engaged in small-scale production of transportable fish products based on locally available wild resources.

Zooarchaeological Analysis Of A Spanish Late Colonial And Territorial Periods Site In Northern Rio Grande, New Mexico, Sara Jaramillo

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

This poster examines faunal remains from El Rancho de las Golondrinas (LA 127375) to investigate animal production, consumption, and labor practices in northern New Mexico during the Late Colonial and Territorial periods. By applying standard zooarchaeological methods and comparing the assemblage to an earlier Spanish Colonial site (LA 20,000), the study explores changes and continuities in regional ranching economies under shifting political and economic conditions. Results indicate that sheep/goats (Ovis/Capra) and cattle (Bos taurus) remained the dominant domesticated animals, demonstrating the long-term importance of pastoralism in New Mexico. Variations in the relative abundance of livestock through time may reflect changes …

Kibbutz Megiddo (Al-Lajjun): The Faunal Remains, Guy Bar-Oz, Laila Abado

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

This report discusses a small bone assemblage retrieved from the Hellenistic–Mamluk strata at Kibbutz Megiddo (al-Lajjun). The assemblage is predominantly composed of livestock taxa, including sheep, goats, cattle and chickens. Notably, camel bones are present in almost all strata, with the exception of the Hellenistic period stratum. Pathological analysis of cattle foot bones suggests that these animals were also used as beasts of burden.

“These They Cut In Pieces, Bones And All…”: An Examination Of Pequot Subsistence Practices During The Early 17th Century At The Calluna Hill Site, Groton, Connecticut, Megan V. Goldstein

Graduate Masters Theses

Beginning in the early 17th century, the arrival of Europeans in southern New England led to rapid changes and cultural transformation as Indigenous lifeways were impacted by the introduction of foreign materials, cultural structures, and the onset of colonialism. Archaeological research has helped to demonstrate how individuals and communities navigated the pressures of colonialism and developed ways to survive and persist in the centuries that followed. The early 17th century is an archaeologically underrepresented time period in southern New England, limiting an understanding of how Indigenous people initially interpreted foreign material culture, negotiated changes in their lifeways, and in particular, …

Eshta’Ol: Faunal Remains From The Chalcolithic Period And Bronze Age, Edward F. Maher

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

This article presents a zooarchaeological study of a small faunal assemblage recovered from Areas B, D and E at Eshta’ol, dating to the Late Chalcolithic period (Stratum IV), Early Bronze Age IB (Stratum III) and Intermediate Bronze Age (Stratum II). A total of 250 bone fragments were analyzed, with 86 identifiable specimens representing eight species, primarily from the EB IB stratum. The assemblage is dominated by domestic animals—especially caprines, cattle and pigs. Mortality profiles based on epiphyseal fusion and dental wear indicate a preference for secondary products—such as wool, milk and dung—over meat consumption. Small-scale farming and agricultural activity may …

At Least It's Not Hospital Food: Faunal Analysis Of A Virginia Plantation Occupied By The Union Army, Kyett U. Salamone

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis uses faunal remains from a midden at Sherwood Forest Plantation, Stafford County, Virginia to discuss the diet and provisioning of Union soldiers. Sherwood Forest was among Virginia’s wealthiest plantations in the Antebellum Period. During winter 1862-1863, the Army of the Potomac occupied the site, treating it as an ad hoc supply depot, pastureland and field hospital. After the war, the plantation owner and his heirs repeatedly sought repayment through the court system, generating documents detailing his confiscated and damaged property. The assemblage is compared to three zooarchaeological approaches about food supply: barreled meat, 19^th century military supply, …

Modi‘In, Nofim Neighborhood: Animal Bones, Nimrod Marom

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

This report describes a very small collection of animal bones from a karstic cave and an unfinished cistern excavated in Nofim Neighborhood in Modi‘in. It appears to comprise domesticated animals in secondary or tertiary deposition. Many of the bones represent donkeys and dogs, and therefore cannot be considered food refuse.

Ras El-‘Amud, Jerusalem: Faunal Remains From The Intermediate Bronze And Middle Bronze Age Settlement, Nimrod Marom

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The small faunal assemblage from Ras el-‘Amud provides insights into the economic strategies of a rural settlement during a period of urban growth. A shift from a self-sufficient goat and pig economy to a specialized sheep-focused one is observed, likely driven by urban demand. Analysis of caprine skeletal remains suggests consumption patterns and potential ritualistic practices. The Middle Bronze IIA village exhibits a decrease in butchery waste, possibly due to changes in spatial organization or waste disposal practices. The assemblage offers valuable insights into the economic and social dynamics of rural settlements during the Middle Bronze Age.

People Of The Ogeechee: Subsistence And Landscape Use In The Late Archaic Ogeechee River Valley, Caleb R. Jeck

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Precontact life in the Ogeechee River valley of Georgia’s Coastal Plain is significantly understudied in contrast to the adjacent Savannah River valley and the coast of Georgia. Research in these regions has provided a substantial amount of archaeological data that has helped us to understand Late Archaic period dynamics and the settlement patterns of precontact people, primarily those associated with Stallings culture. The Ogeechee River valley figured prominently during the Late Archaic period, especially during Classic Stallings times, yet the region’s archaeological record is largely unexamined. Settlement patterns for coastal Georgia and the middle Savannah River valley have been proposed …

Faunal Use And Distribution At The Site Of Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala, Jemima Georges

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation delves into the pre-Columbian Preclassic Maya civilization, examining the societal dynamics, subsistence strategies, and cultural practices at Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Guatemala through the analysis of animal bones. Animal bones are used as indicators of dietary habits, social structures, and ideological beliefs. The findings highlight a diet that evolved from favoring a complex array of strategies in the Middle Preclassic period to one that concentrated on a few mammals and freshwater resources. These decisions were influenced by sociopolitical changes from the Middle to Late Preclassic periods. Excavations of three residences (J1, C2/1, R2/1, and R1/2) and four public spaces (Mound ZZ1, …

Identifying The Use Of Turtles And Tortoises At The Prehistoric Penny Site At Cape Canaveral, Alexandria Griffin

Honors Undergraduate Theses

As people live in an area, they leave behind an assortment of cultural items they once utilized. Some of these items may include pottery or bones from animals they used as food. Analysis of these bones can give a glimpse into how they managed their resources in the environment around them, including which ecosystems they chose to exploit, and which taxa they prioritized for consumption or cultural purposes. The Indian River Lagoon in Florida is a diverse costal lagoon with many various overlapping ecosystems and ecotones available for prehistoric peoples to utilize. Comparing the frequency of taxa representing different local …

Estimating Change Over Time In Catfish Size As A Proxy For Prehistoric Resource Use At Cape Canaveral, Otis Fields

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The Ais who lived on Cape Canaveral are no longer present to tell their stories, but they left behind artifacts that can help us learn how they managed their environmental resources. Ongoing zooarchaeological analyses from multiple prehistoric sites at Cape Canaveral have revealed a heavy reliance on marine catfishes (Ariopsis felis and Bagre marinus). This study estimates the size and weight of catfish using allometric equations from measurements of dorsal and pectoral spines and otoliths. Analyses will identify potential changes in size over time and preference in size of fish that were kept to evaluate the sustainability of …

Foodway Comparions And Patterns Of Consumer Behavior: The Use Of Orphan And Salvage Archaeological Collections From Historic Missoula, Montana, Emily Thea Meick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The goal of this project is to better understand and test theories about consumer behavior and meat consumption through faunal remains using orphaned and salvaged historic archaeological collections from three sites across Missoula, Montana, from the 1860s through the 1920s. Previous research underscored the need for properly defined units of analysis that represent what was being purchased and consumed. Using a consumer behavior framework and meat quality index, as indicated by price and meat yield, foodways comparisons between a Euromerican household that maintained renters, occupants of a Chinese store, Joss House, and residential dwellings within Missoula’s Red-Light District, and enlisted …

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

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

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 …

An Archeozoological Analysis Of The Vosburg Site In Southern Minnesota, Madison M. Rutter

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The Blue Earth Oneota is a poorly defined taxon located in southern Minnesota. Few large-scale excavations have been conducted in the Blue Earth region, leading to gaps in the overall understating of western Oneota lifeway systems. This research utilizes archeozoological analysis on the zoological assemblage from the Vosburg site (21FA02), a Blue Earth Oneota site located in Faribault County. The Vosburg site is a large habitation site that has been excavated by Wilford in 1938 and 1947, Dobbs in 1979, and Schirmer in 2012. Legacy data from the 1938, 1947, and 1979 excavations was analyzed and compared to the zoological …

Marine Resource Specialization In Viking Age Iceland: Exploitation Of Seabirds And Fish On Hegranes In Skagafjörður, Grace M. Cesario

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on the zooarchaeology of four Viking Age sites on Hegranes, located in Skagafjörður, north Iceland, in order to understand the early economy of the region and place it in a broader context with other settlement sites across the island. This research helps to understand the ways the earliest people in Iceland provided for themselves through niche construction activities that included landscape domestication, animal husbandry, bird hunting, and fishing. It also looks at the zooarchaeological indicators of household autonomy to understand the early social and political landscape in Skagafjörður. At these sites, there is evidence for a specialized …

“Wild Neat Cattle…”: Using Domesticated Livestock To Engineer Colonial Landscapes In Seventeenth-Century Maryland, Valerie M. J. Hall

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The excavation of two 17th-century sites in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, provides an opportunity to explore the impacts of domesticated livestock on the surrounding landscape. Faunal assemblages are analyzed following Henry Miller’s (1984, 1988) foundational study of subsistence practices of early English colonists in the Tidewater region. Data sets from Sparrow’s Rest (18AN1436) and Shaw’s Folly (18AN339) are examined to determine the percentages of domestic livestock vs. wild game consumed by the families at each site as compared to the patterns identified on contemporaneous sites in Miller’s survey, as well as to elucidate potential environmental impacts from the free-ranging herds …

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 …

Zooarchaeology Of Bone, Antler, And Ivory Technologies: A Case Study From The Central Anatolian Bronze And Iron Age Site Kaman Kalehӧyük, Sarah Raffae Macintosh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The proposed dissertation research investigates bone, antler, and ivory technologies in central Anatolia (present-day Turkey) during the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 3000-100 Before Current Era or BCE). At this time, rural agrarian societies were transforming into more complex polities and states. This transformation was marked by a rapid increase of social complexity as documented in the archaeological record in terms of monumental administrative and religious buildings, uniform ceramic ware, and writing. The current archaeological record also informs us about the rate of technological change in pottery, architecture, and metallurgy, as typology, style, and function are widely documented and studied …

Sampling The Local Fare: Fishes At The Sam Israel House Pit (45gr76), Soap Lake, Washington, Adam Fruge

All Master's Theses

The Sam Israel site is a precontact archaeological complex with numerous fish bones at the north end of Soap Lake, Washington. Excavated in 1976, the fish remains recovered from there were never fully analyzed prior to this research. Since this inland Columbia Plateau site had thousands of fish bones, it contained untapped potential for our understanding of ancient local fish procurement. As such, I conducted a detailed analysis of 2,862 fish bone specimens from the Sam Israel House Pit locus to: study a larger sample of fish bones in greater detail than was done before; compare the distribution of fishes …

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.

Commmunity, Ecology, And Modernity: Faunal Analysis Of Skútustaðir In Mývatnssveit, Northern Iceland, Megan Hicks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the archaeofaunal remains from Skútustaðir, a middle to high-status farm in Mývatnssveit, Northern Iceland, to understand the experience of rural communities and their ecologies during Iceland’s transition from regulated colonial exchange to a capitalist economy during the 17^th through 19^th centuries. Archaeofaunal analysis is used to reconstruct changes in the ways that people herded, hunted, and fished, providing insights into how they managed their local environments for subsistence and novel contexts of exchange. In addition to archaeofaunal analysis, primary textual sources are explored to assess how the Skútustaðir household and its rural community mobilized long-term …

Eat This In Remembrance: The Zooarchaeology Of Secular And Religious Sites In 17th-Century New Mexico, Ana C. Opishinski

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the faunal remains from LA 20,000, a 17th-century Spanish estancia near Santa Fe, New Mexico that was inhabited by a family of Spanish colonists and indigenous laborers. The data collected from these specimens are examined to better understand the diet of the site’s inhabitants, especially in conjunction with existing data on the plant portion of the diet at this site. Creating a more complete picture of the diet, the analysis covers Number of Identified Specimens (NISP), Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI), potential meat weight represented by the various species, bone modifications, and ageing and kill-off patterns. These …

Hrísheimar: Fish Consumption Patterns, Wendi K. Coleman

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I examine the fish remain patterns at Hrísheimar, which have provided archaeologists with further evidence that inland sites such as those in the Mývatnssveit Region utilized both local freshwater and marine fish from the coastal regions as a part of their subsistence pattern.

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.

Late Woodland To Early Mississippian Period Subsistence In Coastal Georgia: Animal Remains From Taylor Fish Camp (9gn12), St. Simons Island, Thomas S. Clark

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study investigates subsistence strategies used by Native Americans living in coastal Georgia during the transition from the Late Woodland to Early Mississippian period (ca. AD 700 – 1100). Comparatively little subsistence data are available from the time frame on the southern Atlantic coast. Previous studies have focused mainly on archaeological sites representing preceding or subsequent time periods, and few studies of animal-use at coastal sites have used fine-screening methods. This paper presents the analysis and interpretation of invertebrate and vertebrate remains recovered with 1/16-in screens from Late Woodland/Early Mississippian period contexts at Taylor Fish Camp (9GN12), a multi-component site …

Measuring Trace Element Concentrations In Artiodactyl Cannonbones Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence, Joshua L. Henderson

All Master's Theses

Artiodactyl bones are the most common faunal remains found in Washington prehistoric archaeology sites, but they are often too fragmented to accurately identify a family, genus, or species. Traditional faunal analysis can only organize unidentifiable bone fragments into size class, and chemical methods often require the destruction of bone samples. In this thesis research, I tested a new, nondestructive faunal analysis technique using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) to measure trace element concentrations in comparative collection and archaeological bone samples. Using cannonbones from five different artiodactyl species, I collected trace element data from 50 comparative collection specimens and 18 archaeological specimens …

Mainland Southeast Asia In The Longue Durée: A Zooarchaeological Test Of The "Broad Spectrum Revolution" In Northern Thailand, Cyler Norman Conrad

Anthropology ETDs

In northern Thailand, previous zooarchaeological research suggests that hunter-gatherers consumed a broad diversity of animal resources during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and afterwards (Gorman 1971a). This is a pattern characteristic of Kent Flannery’s (1969) “broad spectrum revolution” hypothesis. Based primarily on presence and absence evidence, faunal assemblages in northern Thailand typically include species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and shellfish, suggesting that prehistoric foragers consumed a wide range of taxa within this mainland Southeast Asian tropical environment. Although zooarchaeological analyses commonly identify this pattern within prehistoric cave and rockshelter sites, past investigations have 1) not attempted to formally test Flannery’s hypothesis, …

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 …

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

Anthropology Datasets

No abstract provided.