Archeozoology

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The term archeozoology is made up of the ancient Greek words ἀρχαῖος "old", ζώον "living being", "animal" and λóγος meaning "doctrine". So the term means doctrine of ancient animals. Archeozoology deals primarily with the remains of animals from archaeological excavations, less often with those from natural collections or other types of tradition. This primarily involves the analysis of bones, but also of mussel shells, snail shells, egg shells, animal mummies, feathers or remains of fur and horn. The time frame mostly covers the Holocene . However, animal remains from parts of the Pleistocene are also examined, with overlaps with paleontology and palaeozoology .

History of the subject

For a long time, little attention was paid to animal remains, especially in classical archeology , which initially saw itself more as a purely art-historical subject and has only recently begun to recognize the importance of economic history and thus the importance of animal bones and plant remains . The history of the discovery of the aurochs skeleton from Haßleben near Erfurt, which was discovered while cutting peat in 1821 and was recovered under Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's direction, can be considered an early exception . This skeleton was examined by Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus in 1827 and described as Bos primigenius . In the 19th century, the main focus of archeozoology was the research of finds from Paleolithic sites, usually from caves, with animal bones playing a larger role. In their standard works published in 1865 and 1875, Henry Christy and Edouard Lartet used animal remains from the caves of the Dordogne to characterize and define Paleolithic phases based on the predominant animal species. The Swiss Ludwig Rütimeyer is considered a pioneer of archeozoology. In 1861 he published a report on the remains of fish and domestic animals from Swiss pile dwellings and used the morphological method that is still used today to identify the remains of bones.

Since the most diverse branches of science ( paleontology , veterinary medicine , zoology , archeology , anthropology ) were involved in the development of archeozoology and this also overlaps with them in numerous research areas, it is a strongly interdisciplinary science.

In Germany, archaeozoology can be studied as a minor at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . A professorship for archaeozoology and isotope research has existed at the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel since 2010; in the previous decades, archaeozoology in Kiel was mainly taught at the Institute for Pet Studies at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel. The Archaeological-Zoological Working Group (AZA) founded by employees of this institute and the Schleswig State Archaeological Museum in 1967, which is now part of the Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archeology and houses more than 30,000 skeletons, is significant . At the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , employees from Monrepos, Archaeological Research Center and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution, teach archeozoology and taphonomy; At the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen , the University of Cologne , the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and the Free University of Berlin , archaeological courses and seminars are offered at the archaeological institutes as part of the archaeological or prehistoric and prehistoric education. In German university policy, archeozoology is classified as a minor subject . In Switzerland, archeozoology is taught at the Institute for Prehistoric and Scientific Archeology (IPNA) in Basel.

In addition to research at public institutes, professionally trained archaeozoologists have increasingly been working as freelancers in recent years. In 2011 they founded the Association of Archaeozoologists (AZV) to set quality standards in the processing of animal bone material.

Find material and methods

Vertebrate bones ( mammals , birds , reptiles , amphibians and fish ) and invertebrate remains ( molluscs ) of:

  • human settlements as slaughter and food leftovers,
  • Cult places as animal sacrifices or leftovers from cult meals,
  • Schindangern or cemeteries as buried or buried animals.

The morphological and osteometric recording of the finds is based on the following criteria:

  • taxonomic assignment of the remains, slaughter / death age determination, sex determination,
  • Pathologies, natural and artificial changes to the animal remains (cuts, exposure to fire, water, etc.).

These data are then evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively (composition of the archaeofauna , proportions, size reconstruction).

In addition to the classic methods, new forms of analysis are now increasingly finding their way into archeozoology, e.g. B. the study of stable isotopes and of aDNA .

Research priorities

literature

  • Norbert Benecke: Man and his pets. The story of a relationship that goes back thousands of years. Parkland-Verl., Cologne 2001. ISBN 3-88059-995-5
  • RL Lyman: Vertebrate taphonomy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994, ISBN 0-521-30407-5
  • Joris Peters: Roman animal husbandry and animal breeding. Passauer Universitätsschriften zur Aräologie 5. Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, Rahden / Westphalia 1998, ISBN 3-89646-172-9
  • Elizabeth J. Reitz and Elizabeth S. Wing: Zooarchaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999. ISBN 0-521-48529-0
  • Juliet Clutton-Brock : A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, 2nd edition, ISBN 0-521-63495-4
  • Dirk Heinrich, Hans Reichstein and Kurt Schietzel: 25 years of the Archaeological-Zoological Working Group Schleswig-Kiel. In: Offa. 48, 1991, 9-39.
  • Cornelia Becker and Norbert Benecke: Archeozoology in Germany. Its Course of Development. In: Archaeofauna. 10, 2001, 163-182.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Cornelia Becker and Norbert Benecke, Archeozoology in Germany. Its Course of Development. Archaeofauna 10, 2001, 166 ff.
  2. See AZA website: http://www.zbsa.eu/zentrum/abteilungen/archaeozoologische-sammlung
  3. see page of the Small Subjects Unit on Archeozoology, accessed on April 17, 2019