From 1974 to the present, the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Texas at Austin has carried out archaeological excavations in the ancient territory (chora) of Metaponto, now ...located in the modern province of Basilicata on the southern coast of Italy. This wide-ranging investigation, which covers a number of sites and a time period ranging from prehistory to the Roman Empire, has unearthed a wealth of new information about the ancient rural economy in southern Italy. These discoveries will be published in a multi-volume series titled The Chora of Metaponto. This volume on archaeozoology—the study of animal remains from archaeological sites—is the second in the series, following The Chora of Metaponto: The Necropoleis (1998). Archaeozoology at Pantanello and Five Other Sites describes the animal remains found throughout Metaponto and discusses what they reveal about ancient practices of hunting and herding, domestication and importation of new breeds, people’s attitudes toward animals, and what animal remains indicate about past environments. A chapter devoted to bird bones, which are a relatively rare find because of their fragility, provides high quality information on the environment and methods of fowling, as well as on the beliefs and symbolism associated with birds. The final chapter covers tools—some simple, others sophisticated and richly decorated—made from animal bones.
In the late 1920s outside a sleepy remote New Mexico village, prehistory was made. Spear points, found embedded between the ribs of an extinct Ice Age bison at the site of Folsom, finally resolved ...decades of bitter scientific controversy over whether the first Americans had arrived in the New World in Ice Age times. Although Folsom is justly famous in the history of archaeology for resolving that dispute, for decades little was known of the site except that it was very old. This book for the first time tells the full story of Folsom. David J. Meltzer deftly combines the results of extensive new excavations and laboratory analyses from the late 1990s, with the results of a complete examination and analysis of all the original artifacts and bison remains recovered in the 1920s - now scattered in museums and small towns across the country. Using the latest in archaeological method and technique, and bringing in data from geology and paleoecology, this interdisciplinary study provides a comprehensive look at the adaptations and environments of the late Ice Age Paleoindian hunters who killed a large herd of bison at this spot, as well as a measure of Folsom's pivotal role in American archaeology.
Hunting preferences reveal a great deal about the life of Paleolithic humans, and may reflect changes in human demography, technology, and adaptations to changing environments. However, the effects ...of hunting preferences and environmental availability are often conflated, stressing the need for comparisons to other predators that exploited the same environment. Manot Cave (Israel), preserved rich Early Upper Paleolithic (46-33 ka) human occupations, along with repeated spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) occupations, allowing us to compare anthropogenic and biogenic bone assemblages within the same space and time frame. We focused on the faunal remains retrieved in the middle of the cave (Area D), and conducted detailed taphonomic and zooarchaeological analyses. The Area D archaeofauna was dominated by Mesopotamian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) and mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella), which showed high abundance of carnivore damage. This and the carnivore-to-ungulate ratio, the presence of juvenile hyena and numerous coprolites match the criteria of a hyena den, confirming that the bone assemblage was created mainly by hyenas. Manot Area D thus reveals hyena prey choice in the Upper Paleolithic Galilee, which we then compared with human prey choice. Our results showed that hyena prey assemblages in Manot and elsewhere in the Levant were Dama-dominated while human assemblages were dominated by Gazella, demonstrating that hyenas and humans hunted different animal size groups, possibly in different habitats. We interpret this phenomenon as resulting from two possible scenarios: the emergence of projectile technology which may favor hunting in open environments, and niche partitioning derived by human-hyena competition. Hyenas were abundant and hunted unselectively while the anthropogenic record presents population turnovers and some dietary diversification. Whereas both scenarios are difficult to test directly with the available evidence, we argue that either one explains quite well the late Pleistocene archaeofaunal patterns in the Levantine record.
On Land and Sea Newsom, Lee A; Wing, Elizabeth S
2004, 2008-07-15
eBook
During the vast stretches of early geologic time, the islands of the Caribbean archipelago separated from continental land masses, rose and sank many times, merged with and broke from other land ...masses, and then by the mid-Cenozoic period settled into the current pattern known today. By the time Native Americans arrived, the islands had developed complex, stable ecosystems. The actions these first colonists took on the landscape—timber clearing, cultivation, animal hunting and domestication, fishing and exploitation of reef species—affected fragile land and sea biotic communities in both beneficial and harmful ways. On Land and Sea examines the condition of biosystems on Caribbean islands at the time of colonization, human interactions with those systems through time, and the current state of biological resources in the West Indies. Drawing on a massive data set collected from long-term archaeological research, the study reconstructs past lifeways on these small tropical islands. The work presents a wide range of information, including types of fuel and construction timber used by inhabitants, cooking techniques for various shellfish, availability and use of medicinal and ritual plants, the effects on native plants and animals of cultivation and domestication, and diet and nutrition of native populations. The islands of the Caribbean basin continue to be actively excavated and studied in the quest to understand the earliest human inhabitants of the New World. This comprehensive work will ground current and future studies and will be valuable to archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists, ecologists, Caribbeanists, Latin American historians, and anyone studying similar island environments.    
This is the first book to provide a systematic overview of social zooarchaeology, which takes a holistic view of human-animal relations in the past. Until recently, archaeological analysis of faunal ...evidence has primarily focused on the role of animals in the human diet and subsistence economy. This book, however, argues that animals have always played many more roles in human societies: as wealth, companions, spirit helpers, sacrificial victims, totems, centerpieces of feasts, objects of taboos, and more. These social factors are as significant as taphonomic processes in shaping animal bone assemblages. Nerissa Russell uses evidence derived from not only zooarchaeology, but also ethnography, history and classical studies, to suggest the range of human-animal relationships and to examine their importance in human society. Through exploring the significance of animals to ancient humans, this book provides a richer picture of past societies.
This paper describes the micromammalian remains and paleoenvironment of the Upper Paleolithic sequence of Manot Cave (46-34 ka), southern Levant. Micromammal remains were identified from Ahmarian ...(46-42 ka), Levantine Aurignacian (38-34 ka) and post-Levantine Aurignacian (34-33 ka) layers. To identify taphonomic agents, molar digestion was modelled for seven local raptor species, and model predictions were compared with observed digestion scores in the Manot Cave material. Raptor species differed significantly in molar digestion patterns, allowing us to identify Tyto alba as the bone accumulator in the Ahmarian and Post-Levantine Aurignacian units. Data were insufficient for species-level identification of the taphonomic agent in the Levantine Aurignacian. Günther's voles (Microtus guentheri) were dominant, though woodland species (Apodemus spp., Sciurus anomalus and Dryomys nitedula) also occurred through the entire sequence. Manot Cave furnished the first fossil record of the Eurasian snow vole (Chionomys nivalis) in the southern Levant during the Late Pleistocene and its first secure record of the water vole (Arvicola terrestris) outside the Hula Valley. Records of other taxa (Acomys dimidiatus and D. nitedula) provide the earliest occurrence datum in the region. Using counts of both identified specimens and distinct elements (lower first molars) we modelled paleoenvironmental conditions through both Weighted Averaging Partial Least Squares regression and a qualitative analysis considering niche preferences of species. Model predictions indicate the unexpectedly pronounced dominance of open habitats compared to present conditions near the cave, though the occurrence and abundance of woodland species also indicate some woodland expansion relative to the preceding Middle Paleolithic period. Combining statistical models and species niche considerations we show that the time span between the Ahmarian, Levantine Aurignacian and post-Levantine Aurignacian was marked by a clear-cut climatic oscillation to cooler and likely wetter conditions.
A major debate in prehistory revolves around the time and place of the earliest habitual use of fire and the hominin species responsible for it. Here we present a newly discovered hearth at Qesem ...Cave (Israel) that was repeatedly used and was the focus of hearth-centered human activities, as early as three-hundred-thousand years ago. The hearth, identified based on mineralogical and microscopic criteria, contains two superimposed use cycles, each composed of shorter episodes – possibly the earliest superimposed hearth securely identified to date. The hearth covers ca. 4 m2 in area making it a uniquely large hearth in comparison to any contemporaneous hearth identified thus far, possibly indicating it has been used by a relatively large group of people. In addition, the hearth is located in the center of the cave and is associated with butchered animal remains and a dense flint assemblage. The flint assemblage indicates spatially differentiated meat cutting and hide working activity areas. The central location of the hearth within the cave and the activities associated with it may reflect an embedded perception of space organization of the Qesem Cave inhabitants. Since fire was habitually used throughout the 420–200 ky sequence of Qesem Cave, where preservation conditions are alike throughout, we suggest that this unique hearth may reflect a development in nature and most probably in the intensity of fire use in Qesem Cave, from ca. 300 ka ago onwards.
•Newly discovered hearth at Qesem Cave, Israel, dates to 300,000 ky ago.•Hearth placed in center of cave surrounded by dense, spatially differentiated, lithic assemblages.•Hearth is large (4 m2), possibly delineated by stone, and was repeatedly built and used in same location.•Hearth may reflect development in the nature and intensity of habitual use of fire in the Lower Paleolithic.
The Early Upper Paleolithic period in the Levant is essential in the studies of the establishment of modern human communities outside Africa, and corresponding archaeological evidence may be used to ...shed light on human ecology, economy and demography. Specifically, cultural differences between two Early Upper Paleolithic entities, the Early Ahmarian and the Levantine Aurignacian, raise the question of differing adaptations. In this article we use archaeofaunal remains from the Early Upper Paleolithic sequence at Manot Cave (Western Galilee, Israel), to track human hunting patterns, carcass transport and processing within the Early Ahmarian (46–42 ka) and Levantine Aurignacian (38–34 ka) phases. We test two hypotheses: 1) the Ahmarian and Aurignacian represent adaptations to different environments; and 2) the two entities differ in mobility patterns and site use.
Our multivariate taphonomic analysis showed subtle differences in depositional processes between the two phases and demonstrated a primarily anthropogenic complex. In both phases, human subsistence was based on two ungulate species, mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) and Mesopotamian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica), with some contribution from birds, tortoises and small mammals. Among the gazelles, it appears that female herds were targeted, and that hunting took place close to the cave. The results of the research show great similarity in environmental exploitation between the Ahmarian and Aurignacian phases concerning prey spectrum and choice, carcass transport and processing. These patterns occupy a middle position between the Middle Paleolithic and the late Epipaleolithic of the region. Despite this, there are also several significant differences between the phases such as increased exploitation of small game (especially birds) and faster accumulation and higher densities of material in the Aurignacian. This may indicate greater occupation intensity during the Aurignacian compared to the Ahmarian, and thus could explain the outstanding character of this entity in the Levant.
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