Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Glossary
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II CHRONOLOGY
- PART III CLIMATE
- PART IV GEOMORPHOLOGY
- PART V SEDIMENTS AND SOILS
- PART VI VEGETATION
- PART VII FAUNA
- 15 FAUNAL PALEOENVIRONMENTS: CONCEPTS AND METHODS
- 16 FAUNAL PALEOECOLOGY
- 17 HUMANS AMONG ANIMALS
- Case Study: Howdowe read these bones? Seasons of use at Star Carr
- PART VIII INTEGRATION
- References
- Index
15 - FAUNAL PALEOENVIRONMENTS: CONCEPTS AND METHODS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Glossary
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II CHRONOLOGY
- PART III CLIMATE
- PART IV GEOMORPHOLOGY
- PART V SEDIMENTS AND SOILS
- PART VI VEGETATION
- PART VII FAUNA
- 15 FAUNAL PALEOENVIRONMENTS: CONCEPTS AND METHODS
- 16 FAUNAL PALEOECOLOGY
- 17 HUMANS AMONG ANIMALS
- Case Study: Howdowe read these bones? Seasons of use at Star Carr
- PART VIII INTEGRATION
- References
- Index
Summary
The days when excavation directors allowed the animal bones to be thrown onto the spoil heap, by default if not by deliberate policy, are now largely past.
GAMBLE AND BAILEY 1994: 81The complex relationships between human populations and components of their environments are particularly intense within the Animal Kingdom. Humans and other animals evolved together for over 3 million years in Africa.While the span of coevolution is shorter in other parts of the world, the expansion of human populations and the growth of technology in recent millennia mean that no animal species is likely to be environmentally unaffected by the existence of Homo sapiens sapiens. Complementarily, as humans encounter and come to know other species, we find our lives interconnected in many subtle ways.
Paleolithic archaeology in the Old World developed from vertebrate paleontology in European caves and gravels, and thus since its nineteenth-century beginnings has employed vertebrate remains as rough guides to paleoclimates. Zooarchaeology (archaeozoology in Europe; osteoarchaeology) as it has developed recently is far from being a simple transfer of paleontological methods and assumptions to archaeological contexts. Most of the optimistic simplifying assumptions about animal remains in archaeological sites thatwere routinely applied in initial studies have been refuted in the past twenty years by the advance of taphonomic understanding. With their passage has come awareness of the rich complexity of information in faunal remains. No longer simply applied paleontology, faunal analysis is a specialization within archaeology whose practitioners conduct research alongside archaeologists. The methods derive from biology, paleontology, and archaeology; the theory is still immature. The goals of faunal analysis in archaeology necessarily diverge from those of paleontology, being anthropocentric by definition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Environmental ArchaeologyPrinciples and Practice, pp. 411 - 443Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000