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Archaeobiology

Archaeobiology is the combined and integrated analysis of plant and animal remains from archaeological sites. It may be defined as the study of the relationship between people and the rest of the living world through the analysis of excavated or archaeologically derived remains. Basic to an archaeobiological approach are two assumptions. First, plants and animals used for food form part of a single subsistence system. Second, plant, animals, and people are part of a single ecosystem. A corollary to this is that significant changes in plant or animal use will be reflected archaeologically in both assemblages. (Insignificant changes will not show up.) Archaeobiological research is part of a continuum of approaches which include aspects of what is included in the term environmental archaeology (especially in British archaeology). There is some overlap with the integrative goals of bioarchaeology as the term is used in the Britain (but this use is distinct from the current understanding in the U.S. that bioarchaeology is based on human skeletal remains).

The concept of archaeobiology is an outgrowth of interdisciplinary research programs of the 1970s and 1980s. In this period, links were suggested between the various “ecofact” categories, in which bones and carbonized plant remains were prominent in reconstructing subsistence patterns. This research depended on systematic sampling using screens and flotation, and became the standard practice in North American archaeology. However, the extension of these research programs and recovery techniques has been less complete and systematic in the study of complex societies, in both in the New and Old Worlds (for examples of integrated archaeobiological research see Moore et al. 2007; Reitz, et al. 1996; Sobolik 2003; VanderWerker and Peres 2009 for the New World; see Hodder 2005; Miller 1997 for the Old World).

The term archaeobiology was used first in the early 1990s, but that approach was applied earlier (e.g., Wright et al. 1981). One interpretation of this approach has been exemplified by the Smithsonian Center for Archaeobiology, established in 1992, which emphasizes the history of human interaction with plants and animals, with a special focus on the initial domestication of plants and animals and the development of early agricultural economies based on domesticated species (SAS Bulletin 2002).

Archaeobiology demands not only detailed analysis of individual samples, but also an enhanced flow of information between scholars working on the two broad categories of remains. The integration of research between the plant and animal remains from the same archaeological deposits is a well-established goal, but one which is rarely fully attained, particularly in the archaeology of complex, urban or proto-urban societies. At a theoretical level, archaeobiology is not limited to proto-farming and agricultural societies, even if that is what many practitioners study (see Sobolik [2003] for an example of archaeobiological approaches in non-agricultural societies in North America). Especially in regions where animal husbandry was practiced, charred seeds originating in herbivore dung burned as fuel provide a direct link between the agricultural and pastoral economies (Charles 1998; Miller 1984). The field incorporates many other archaeologically derived materials, such as pollen, phytoliths, malacologial remains, ancient molecules and isotopes, and soils.

Nmiller0 (talk) 17:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)Nmiller0

Further reading

Charles, Michael 1998	Fodder from dung: the recognition and interpretation of dung-derived plant material from archaeological sites. Environmental Archaeology 1: 111-122.

Hodder, I., ed. 2005	Inhabiting Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 1995-1999 Seasons (Çatalhöyük vol. 4). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge.

Miller, Naomi F. 1984	The use of dung as fuel: an ethnographic example and an archaeological application. Paléorient 10(2): 71-79.

Miller, Naomi F. 1997	Farming and herding along the Euphrates: environmental constraint and cultural choice (fourth to second millennia B.C.). In Subsistence and Settlement in a Marginal Environment, by R.L. Zettler, pp. 123–132. MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology 14. Philadelphia.

Moore, K.M., M.C. Bruno, J. Capriles F., C.A. Hastorf. 2007    Integrated contextual approaches to understanding past activities using plant and animal remains from Kala Uyuni. In Taraco Archaeological Project Excavations at Kala Uyuni, ed. M. Bandy and C.A. Hastorf, pp. 113-133. Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility, Berkeley, no. 64. Berkeley.

SAS Bulletin 2002	Laboratory Profile: Center for Archaeobiological Research, National Museum of Natural History. Society for Archaeological Science Bulletin 23(2):5–6.

Sobolik, Kristin D 2003	Archaeobiology. Archaeologist Toolkit Vol. 5. Waveland Press.

VanderWerker, Amber and Tanya Peres, editors 2009 (in press) Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany: A Consideration of Issues, Methods, and Cases. Springer Verlag.

Wright, Henry T., Naomi F. Miller, and Richard W. Redding 1981	Time and Process in an Uruk Rural Center. (with Henry T. Wright, senior author, and Richard W. Redding). L'archéologie de l'Iraq: Perspectives et limites de l'interpretation anthropologique des documents, pp. 265–282 Colloques Internationaux du CNRS 580.

See also

Archaeobotany Ethnobiology Paleoethnobotany Zooarchaeology

External links

Smithsonian Institution Archaeobiology Program Association for Environmental Archaeology