Chapter 9 Flashcards
What does a zooarchaeological study involve?
Establish that the bones are “cultural” - left behind by people (by looking for cutmarks, fractures and burning).
Identify the bones to element, taxon, sex and age using a comparative collection.
Count the bones using NISP (number of identifying speciments) and MNI (maximum number of individuals). NISP is simply a count of the number of bones of a particular taxon; MNI is the minimum number of animals required to account for those bones.
The specific elements present and their breakage patterns suggest how the animals were hunted and butchered; this also suggests whether they were hunted close or far away, whether meat was stored or traded, or if people were pressed for food.
The links between patterns in the faunal assemblage and interpretations depends on experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology.
How do animal bones and plants help establish a site’s season of occupation?
The age of animals represented in faunal assemblage coupled with assumptions of their season of birth help establish a site’s “seasonability”. Likewise, the modern fruiting schedules of plants represented in sites by their seeds or other edible components suggest when a site was occupied.
How do plants help to reconstruct past environments?
The sources include microbotanical remains (e.g., charred seeds recovered by floatation), phytoliths (silica nodules found in some plant stems), pollen, coprolites (presented human feces) and lipids extracted from pottery.
Each source has its strengths and weaknesses. Macrobotanical remains can be abundant, but it is not always clear if they represent food; coprolites clearly contain the remains of meals, but they are very short-term records.
People’s interaction with the environment has an economic basis, but culture may place layers of symbolic meaning on top of that interaction.
How can pollen help reconstruct past environments?
Because different plant species produce differently shaped pollens, we can identify ancient vegetation by identifying pollen in archaeological sites. Samples are prepared and the pollen counted under a microscope. The varying percentages of pollen in the samples roughly track the varying percentages of the different plant species that produced them.
Pollen is good at reconstructing the regional environment; the palynologist must take measurements to ensure that the results are not biased by a local environment’s pollen.
Other sources of information, such as wood rat nests, provide evidence of local vegetation.
