The history of “laundry lists” in North American zooarchaeology

Lyman, R. Lee

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2015.02.003

“…Understanding skeletal part representation plays an important role in interpreting past foraging behaviours. Therefore, enhancing our ability to identify postcrania to higher taxonomic levels is essential if we wish to move beyond the 'laundry lists' of species presence and absence and examine wider anthropological questions concerning diet breadth and human mobility 70 . The presence banded hare-wallabies and northern nail-tail wallabies at Boodie Cave provides independent support for the regional patterns of paleoenvironmental and ecological change along the arid Pilbara coast during the terminal Pleistocene.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphometric classification of kangaroo bones reveals paleoecological change in northwest Australia during the terminal Pleistocene

Mein

¹

,

Manne

²

,

Veth

³

et al. 2022

Preprint

0

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Specimen identification is the backbone of archeozoological research. The challenge of differentiating postcranial skeletal elements of closely related wild animals in biodiverse regions can prove a barrier to understanding past human foraging behaviours. Morphometrics are increasingly being employed to classify paleozoological animal remains, however, the potential of these methods to discriminate between wild animal groups has yet to be fully realised. Here we demonstrate the applicability of a traditional morphometric approach to taxonomically classify foot and ankle bones of kangaroos, a large and highly diverse marsupial family. Using multiple discriminant analysis, we classify archaeological specimens from Boodie Cave, in northwest Australia and identify the presence of two locally extinct macropod species during the terminal Pleistocene. The appearance of the banded hare-wallaby and northern nail-tail wallaby in the Pilbara region at this time provides independent evidence of the ecological and human responses to a changing climate at the end of the last Ice Age. Traditional morphometrics provides an accessible, inexpensive, and non-destructive tool for paleozoological specimen classification and has substantial potential for applications to other diverse wild faunas.

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“…Understanding skeletal part representation plays an important role in interpreting past foraging behaviours. Therefore, enhancing our ability to identify postcrania to higher taxonomic levels is essential if we wish to move beyond the ‘laundry lists’ of species presence and absence and examine wider anthropological questions concerning diet breadth and human mobility 76 . The presence of banded hare-wallabies and northern nail-tail wallabies at Boodie Cave provides independent support for the regional patterns of paleoenvironmental and ecological change along the arid Pilbara coast during the terminal Pleistocene.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphometric classification of kangaroo bones reveals paleoecological change in northwest Australia during the terminal Pleistocene

Mein

¹

,

Manne

²

,

Veth

³

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

4

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Specimen identification is the backbone of archeozoological research. The challenge of differentiating postcranial skeletal elements of closely related wild animals in biodiverse regions can prove a barrier to understanding past human foraging behaviours. Morphometrics are increasingly being employed to classify paleozoological animal remains, however, the potential of these methods to discriminate between wild animal groups has yet to be fully realised. Here we demonstrate the applicability of a traditional morphometric approach to taxonomically classify foot and ankle bones of kangaroos, a large and highly diverse marsupial family. Using multiple discriminant analysis, we classify archaeological specimens from Boodie Cave, in northwest Australia and identify the presence of two locally extinct macropod species during the terminal Pleistocene. The appearance of the banded hare-wallaby and northern nail-tail wallaby in the Pilbara region at this time provides independent evidence of the ecological and human responses to a changing climate at the end of the last Ice Age. Traditional morphometrics provides an accessible, inexpensive, and non-destructive tool for paleozoological specimen classification and has substantial potential for applications to other diverse wild faunas.

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“…For example, questions relating to the relative proportions of the representation of skeletal elements and even taxa would be difficult to address given the severe collection bias. This leaves us with three important data sets we feel are robust enough to use: firstly, a revised taxonomic list (Lyman 1986(Lyman , 2015; secondly, species-specific observations on biometry, morphology and age-at-death; and, lastly, the presence or absence of bone-surface modifications to facilitate assessment of the involvement of different taphonomic agents in assemblage formation. These data sets will be employed to answer the following questions: (1) Are there species in the fauna from Middle Pleistocene Oumm Qatafa that reflect climatic conditions that are essentially different from today?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Late Middle Pleistocene mammalian fauna of Oumm Qatafa Cave, Judean Desert: taxonomy, taphonomy and palaeoenvironment

Marom

¹

,

Lazagabaster

²

,

Shafir

³

et al. 2022

J Quaternary Science

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The Middle Pleistocene archaeological record of the southern Levant has proven key to understanding human evolution and intercontinental faunal biogeography. Knowledge of archaeological sites of that period in the southern Levant is biased, with most Middle Pleistocene localities in the Mediterranean areas in the north, despite the mosaic of environments that mark the entire region. A key Middle Pleistocene location in the Judean Deserton the eastern margin of the Mediterranean zoneis the site of Oumm Qatafa, excavated in the early 1900s, which yielded a faunal collection spanning an estimated time period of 600-200 kya. Here, we present a revised taxonomy of the macromammalian fauna from the site, discuss the palaeoenvironmental implications of this assemblage, and relate the finds to other Pleistocene sites from the Levant. These data enable a more precise palaeoenvironmental reconstruction which attests to an open landscape, but with the addition of a mesic Mediterranean component close by. In addition, detailed taphonomic observations on butchery marks and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis of burnt bone link the fauna for the first time to anthropogenic activities in the cave.

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The history of “laundry lists” in North American zooarchaeology

Cited by 31 publications

References 34 publications

Morphometric classification of kangaroo bones reveals paleoecological change in northwest Australia during the terminal Pleistocene

Morphometric classification of kangaroo bones reveals paleoecological change in northwest Australia during the terminal Pleistocene

Morphometric classification of kangaroo bones reveals paleoecological change in northwest Australia during the terminal Pleistocene

The Late Middle Pleistocene mammalian fauna of Oumm Qatafa Cave, Judean Desert: taxonomy, taphonomy and palaeoenvironment

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