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 book presents a new perspective on the social milieu of the Early and Middle Neolithic in Central Europe as viewed through relations between humans and animals, food acquisition and consumption, as well as refuse disposal practices. Based on animal bone assemblages from a wide range of sites from a period of over 2,000 years originating in both the North European Plain lowlands and the loess uplands, the evidence explored in the book represents the Linear Band Pottery Culture (LBK), the Lengyel Culture, and the Funnel Beaker Culture (TRB) allowing us to follow the dynamic development of early farmers from their emergence in the area north of the Carpathians up to their consolidation and stabilization in this new territory.

Animals have played a fundamental role in shaping human history, and the study of their remains from archaeological sites - zooarchaeology - has gradually been emerging as a powerful discipline and crucible for forging an understanding of our past. This Handbook offers a cutting-edge, global compendium of zooarchaeology that seeks to provide a holistic view of the role played by animals in past human cultures. Case studies from across five continents explore ahuge range of human-animal interactions from an array of geographical, historical, and cultural contexts, and also illuminate the many approaches and methods adopted by different schools and traditions instudying these relationships.

A holistic understanding of worked bone and the ways it shapes and is shaped by the humans who made and used it comes from integrating multiple perspectives.

This volume is a comprehensive, critical introduction to vertebrate zooarchaeology, the field that explores the history of human relations with animals from the Pliocene to the Industrial Revolution.​ The book is organized into five sections, each with an introduction, that leads the reader systematically through this swiftly expanding field. Section One presents a general introduction to zooarchaeology, key definitions, and an historical survey of the emergence of zooarchaeology in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and introduces the conceptual approach taken in the book. This volume is designed to allow readers to integrate data from the book along with that acquired elsewhere within a coherent analytical framework. Most of its chapters take the form of critical “review articles,” providing a portal into both the classic and current literature and contextualizing these with original commentary. Summaries of findings are enhanced by profuse illustrations by the author and others.​

This book is the first in a series of volumes which form the published proceedings of the 9th meeting of the International Council of Archaeozoology (ICAZ), held in Durham in 2002. The 35 papers present a series of case studies from around the world. They stretch beyond the standard zooarchaeological topics of economy and ecology, and consider how zooarchaeological research can contribute to our understanding of human behaviour and social systems. The volume is divided into two parts. Part 1, Beyond Calories, focuses on the zooarchaeology of ritual and religion. Contributors discuss ways to approach questions of ritual and religion through the faunal record, and consider how material culture depicting and/or associated with animals can provides clues about ideology, religious practices and the role of animals within spiritual systems. Part 2, Equations for Inequality, looks at questions of identity, status and other forms of social differentiation in former human societies. Contributors discuss how differences in food consumption, nutrition, and food procurement strategies can be related to various forms of social differentiation among individuals and groups.

Kirikongo is an archaeological site composed of thirteen remarkably well-preserved discrete mounds occupied continually from the early first to the mid second millennium AD. It spans a dynamic era that saw the growth of large settlement communities and regional socio-political formations, development of economic specializations, intensification in interregional commercial networks, and the effects of the Black Death pandemic. The extraordinary preservation of architectural units, activity areas and industrial zones provides a unique opportunity to discern the cultural practices that created stratified mounds (tells) in this part of West Africa. Building from a new detailed zooarchaeological analysis and refinements in stratigraphic precision, this book argues that repeated ritual activity was a significant factor in the accumulation of stratified archaeological deposits. The book details consistencies in form and content of discrete loci containing animal bones, food remains, and broken and unbroken objects and suggests that these are the remnants of sequential ancestor shrines created when domestic spaces were converted to tombs or dedicated mortuary monuments were constructed. Continuities and transformations in ancestral rituals at Kirikongo inform on earlier West African ritual practices from the second millennium BC as well as political and social transformations at the site. More broadly, this case study provides new insights on anthropogenic mound (tell) formation processes, social zooarchaeology, material culture theory, historical ontology, and the analysis of ritual and religion in the archaeological record.

Seventeen papers demonstrate how zooarchaeologists engage with questions of identity through culinary references, livestock husbandry practices and land use. Contributions combine hitherto unpublished zooarchaeological data from regions straddling a wide geographic expanse between Greece in the West and India in the East and spanning a time range from the latest part of the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. The vitality of a hands-on approach to data presentation and interpretation carried out primarily at the level of the individual site – the arena of research providing the bread and butter of zooarchaeological work conducted in southwest Asia – is demonstrated. Among the themes explored are shifting identities of late hunter-gatherers through interactions with settled agrarian societies; the management of camp sites by early complex hunter-gatherers; processes of assimilation of Roman culinary practices among Egyptian elites; and the propagation of medieval pilgrim identity through the use of seashell insignia. A wealth of new data is discussed and a wide variety of applications of analytical approaches are applied to particular case studies within the framework of social and contextual zooarchaeology. The volume constitutes the proceedings of the 11th meeting of the ICAZ Working Group - Archaeozoology of Southwestern Asia and Adjacent Areas (ASWA).

Global Social Archaeologies contributes to the active engagement of contemporary social archaeology through addressing issues such as postcolonialism, community heritage, and Indigenous rights. It addresses the major challenge of breaking down global divides, especially in relation to fundamental human rights, inequality, and inequities of wealth, power, and access to knowledge. This authoritative volume, authored by the current and past presidents of the World Archaeological Congress, introduces readers to the various theoretical and methodological tools available for the investigation of the past. Taking into account the implications for contemporary societies, it offers a new framework for social archaeologies in a globalised world. By combining new data from their research with an innovative synthesis and analysis of leading research by others, the authors have developed fresh conceptualisations and understandings of archaeology as a social practice, and of the ways in which it simultaneously straddles the past, present, and future. Exploring a range of case studies and enhanced by a wealth of illustrations, Global Social Archaeologies highlights a new approach to archaeology, one that places human rights at the core of archaeological theory and practice.

This book serves as an introductory text for students interested in identification and analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites. This revised edition reflects developments in zooarchaeology that have occurred during the past decade. It includes new sections on enamel ultrastructure and incremental analysis, stable isotyopes and trace elements, ancient genetics and enzymes, environmental reconstruction, people as agents of environmental change, applications of zooarchaeology in animal conversation and heritage management, and a discussion of issues pertaining to the curation of archaeofaunal materials.