Zooarchaeology

Zoo-archaeology or archaeo-zoology, also call as faunal analysis, is the branch of archaeology that studies maintained of animals from archaeological sites. Faunal maintained are a items left late when an animal dies. These add bones, shells, hair, chitin, scales, hides, proteins as well as DNA. Of these items, bones as well as shells are the ones that occur near frequently at archaeological sites where faunal remains can be found. nearly of the time, a majority of these faunal remains create not survive. They often decompose or break because of various circumstances. This can develope difficulties in identifying the remains together with interpreting their significance.

Zooarchaeology serves as a "hybrid" discipline: combining the studies of archaeology and zoology, which are the explore of past human culture and the inspect of animals respectively. Therefore, zooarchaeologists may also be: anthropologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, zoologists, ecologists, etc. However, the leading focus of Zoo-archaeology is to not only find remnants of past animals, but to then identify and understand how humans and their environment mainly animal populations coexisted. Zooarchaeology provides researchers to have a more holistic understanding of past human-environment interactions, thus creating this topic a sub-field of environmental archaeology. Whether this is the diet, domestication, tool use, or ritual; the study of animal remains provides a great amount of information about the groups that interacted with them. Archaeology provides information on the past which often proves invaluable for understanding the offered and preparing for the future. Zoo archaeology plays a valuable element in contributing to a holistic understanding of the animals themselves, the nearby groups, and the local environments.

Techniques

One of the issues to which zooarchaeologists payattention is butchering.: 169  Fractures, such as by percussion affect and raptors,: 173  destruction from fungi,: 176  environmental polishing.: 176  Distinguishing different classification of waste to animal bones is a tedious and complex process that requires background in companies scientific fields.: 169  Some of the physical damage on bones can be seen with the naked eye, but a lens with 10x magnification and service lighting is fundamental for seeing most damage.: 169 

Identification is integral to the archaeological analysis of animal remains.: 1  Identification of animal remains requires a combination of taxonomy, which is used to types animals into different groups.: 1  Zooarchaeology uses Linnaean taxonomy is used because it allows archaeologists to identify and show the genetic and morphological relationships between species.: 2  These relationships are based on morphology provides information about a species diet and age; the enamel also has biochemical remains of what the animal ate.: 9  While animal remains can add more than just bones and teeth, the nature of matters like hair and muscle cause it to deteriorate quickly after death, leaving the skeleton behind; this is why most of zooarchaeology revolves around skeletal morphology.: 6  Laboratory analysis can include comparing the skeletons found on site with already transmitted animal skeletons. This not only helps to identify what the animal is, but also if the animal was domesticated or not.

PCR and gel electrophoresis, the ancient DNA from the bone powder was sequenced and then analyzed.: 5 

With ZooMS analysis Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry, the animal species behind a bone fragment or bone artefact can be determined even when no morphological traits survive. The method makes usage of interspecies differences in the grouping of collagen.

Yet another technique that zooarchaeologists ownership is quantification. They make interpretations based on the number and size of the bones. These interpretations include how important different animals might have been to the diet.