From New World to Old: turkey pathologies as a reflection of human behaviour

Brooklynne 'Tyr' Fothergill

The aim of this project is to undertake palaeopathological analysis of Meleagris gallopavo (turkey) specimens from North America and Britain in order to enable the impact of human management practices on the manifestation of disease and injury to be charted over a period of 1000 years, from roughly AD750 to 1750. The pathologies present in these specimens will be compared and specifically examined with respect to change over time in an effort to elucidate past human-animal interactions and husbandry practices. Results from this analysis will be used to answer various questions on the impacts of domestication and translocation of Meleagris gallopavo.

Feeding the city: zooarchaeological perspectives on urban provisioning in post-medieval England (AD 1500-1900)

Rebecca Gordon

Animal bones are ubiquitous archaeological finds and their analysis can inform upon a range of past human activities including: diet and subsistence, craft and industry, religion/ritual and economic regimes. Despite this, the study of animal bones in British archaeology remains exclusive to the earlier periods, resulting in a lack of detailed analyses of faunal material from the post-medieval period. As a period that witnessed immense social and economic transformation there is a unique opportunity to use animal bones to understand the socio-economic repercussions of the changes in this era. Through integration of zooarchaeological and historical data, this research aims to reveal how human-animal relationships can inform upon: social status, livestock ‘improvement’ and food consumption behaviours in post-medieval England. By creating a database of faunal data and conducting primary analysis on post-medieval animal bones from Chester, this research hopes to enrich our understanding of the populations and evolution of our modern cities.

Towards the creation of a digital dataset amalgamating the entirety of zoaorchaeological assemblage data within a GIS platform

Rebecca Kibble:

The research aims at creating a digital dataset using GIS applications that can encode the full complexities of zooarchaeological assemblage data across multi-scalar boundaries. The study will encapsulate empirical research on faunal assemblage data, in terms of methodological procedures from data acquisition to final digital output. Fundamentally I will be using statistics to characterise and amalgamate multi-variate assemblage data into a singular comparative dataset by using the principles of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and correspondence analysis; to facilitate more flexible and fluid temporal and spatial examination. Once such a dataset is created the second main aim is to establish how GIS can visualise and analyse the multi-variate, multi-scalar datasets produced within spatial and temporal domains. This has huge significance for the progression of GIS within archaeology, particularly within zooarchaeology in terms of creating a more robust way of recording, analysing and disseminating faunal assemblages. GIS needs to be able to handle and analyse archaeological data in terms of complex spatial and temporal domains to fully exploit the research potential of GIS applications specific to the archaeological discipline. My research will investigate the analytical potential of multi-variate and multi-scalar data to determine its use within archaeology.

Diet and provisioning in Roman small towns: a case study from Ashton, Northamptonshire

Meghann Mahoney:

This research focuses on the complex ideologies of food production, supply, and consumption in the Roman world through the primary analysis and interpretation of a substantial assemblage of animal bones from the Romano-British small town of Ashton in Northamptonshire. The complete excavation of one seventh of this small town presents a unique opportunity to explore fine-grained spatial and temporal patterns of diet and animal husbandry. Drawing together the results of this assemblage with anthropological theories connected to human-animal interactions, this research will disentangle the complex web of social and economic drivers that influenced stock raising, meat supply, and household consumption in Roman small towns.

Anthropization then and now: a comparison of zooarchaeologically-recorded faunal biodiversity with present-day faunal biodiversity in Florida

Thomas Ohlson:

With the growing concern about the impact humans are having on the planet’s environment, pertinent issues such as global warming, habitat destruction, and loss of biodiversity can benefit from studies which can compare and contrast the state of the planet during periods of different human and environmental conditions. Zooarchaeology can play a pivotal role in addressing these issues, evaluating the accuracy of paleoenvironmental reconstructions, and bringing sound evidence of past ecosystems to light. Currently, there are a number of species indigenous to Florida that are threatened, endangered, or on the brink of extinction. Almost all of these cases can be attributed to anthropogenic factors. Zooarchaeological databases can be used to establish both spatial and temporal placements of fauna, in relation to human activity. The main goal of my research is to compare zooarchaelogical databases to current faunal populations in an effort to determine at what point, and to what extent, did anthropogenic factors impact faunal populations. In doing so, I hope to highlight that this type of research in general, and the zooarchaeological data in particular, are essential resources that conservation biologists and policy-makers can use to make informed decisions on how to preserve Florida’s indigenous biodiversity.