ANT 104 - Revealing Archaeology - Provisioning Society

Artifacts that provide subsistence clues

- Coprolite - Stone Hoe - Antler - Bow - Grinding Stone (metate)

Coprolites

- Fossilized fecal material. Coprolites can be analyzed to gain information about diet and subsistence patterns. -Perhaps the most direct evidence of all for human diet is coprolites. Paleofeces are a great source of information about human diet because they show us what actually went down the hatch! They can tell us about storage because sometimes we find seeds or fruits from different seasons of the year in the same specimen. Moreover, the presence of parasites in these little gems informs us about prehistoric health and disease. Experimental work in this area is not for the faint of heart.

Remains that are good indicators of seasonality

- Otolith (annular growth structures in fish) - Antler (grows & sheds in annual cycles) - teeth (incremental annual growth structures)

Zooarchaeology

- Zooarchaeology is the study of animal tissues from archaeological contexts to learn about past people. - Although zoological expertise is required, the research questions concern people. Much of the earlier part of the archaeological record is comprised of broken animal bones and stone tools, while the latest parts include the remains of domesticated animal species. - The study of animal bones from archaeological sites has contributed much to our understanding of human behavioral change through time.

Resources found in channels & backwater lakes

- muskrat - common merganser (duck) - channel catfish - black drumfish - Canadian geese

Resources found in floodplains

- sumpweed - cattails - Lambsquarter

Resources found in upland forests

- white-tail deer - hickory nuts - acorns

This contingency table shows the relative frequencies in minimum animal units (MAU) of different skeletal regions of several species arranged from smallest to largest. What is the minimum number of hares represented in this assemblage? Type your response in the space provided. Hare | Dog | Gazelle | Eland Skull: 13 | 2 | 7 | 8 Axial: 7 | 2 | 4 | 0 Upper Limb: 12 | 2 | 4 | 0 Lower Limb: 13 | 2 | 6 | 5

13

Flotation (method)

A method for enhancing the recovery of plant remains and tiny artifacts (beads, faunal remains, etc) from archaeological sites. Excavated sediments are poured into water, allowing the lighter material to float to the surface where it can be recovered. The heavier material is separated from the matrix by agitating the mixture. It is then sorted, often with the use of magnification and tweezers.

Animal Domestication

Along with plant domestication, animal husbandry was one of the pivotal events in human history. The ability to selectively control a food supply of great nutritional value represented a quantum leap, but it required shifts in the habits and behavior of both the domesticated and the domesticator. It can be argued persuasively that the process domesticates both people and animals!

Part Abundance

Although modern hunters transport the complete carcasses of small animals to their camps, no one carries a giraffe home whole. Rather, people butcher animals in the field into parcels that can be easily carried. Zooarchaeologists study economic anatomy, the relative "worth" of different animal parts. Using this information, they can monitor the decisions of ancient hunters by studying which parts were brought home and which were abandoned in the field.

Bone Samples

An archaeofauna is the faunal remains collected from archaeological sediments. Archaeofaunas are nearly always a sample of the deposited assemblage. Further sampling is due to "laboratory taphonomy," the decisions zooarchaeologists make about what is "identifiable." Identifiability is influenced by many factors, including specimen size and the analyst's effort. Finally, the primary data emerge, including which parts of which animals are present, plus age, sex, and modification details.

Comparative Collections

An essential analytical tool in the study of many kinds of archaeological specimens, including archaeobotanical ones, is the comparative collection. - Comparative collections are comprehensive, systematically organized specimens of known modern origin with associated data about biological species, age, sex, location, and more. - Comparative specimens are used to help identify archaeological specimens that are often in bad shape, fragmentary, decomposed fragments of the original material.

Durability

Animal remains vary in their durability. This fact influences what will be recovered from an archaeological site. Animal tissues that have a fighting chance of being preserved at archaeological sites include shells, teeth, bones, scales, and dermal ossicles.

The picture on the left shows a butchery site. The picture on the right shows a habitation site. Describe the faunal assemblage you would expect to recover from each of the two sites. Site 1: The initial stages of butchering a giraffe near Lake Eyasi, Tanzania. The butchery of the giraffe, which was shot by a Hadza bow-hunter, will take the entire day to accomplish. The goal of the butchery is to render the carcass into transportable portions. Site 2: Meat processing at a Kua base camp in the east central Kalahari. Visible in the picture are strips of dried gemsbok meat that the hunter carried from the butchery site and distributed to this household. The man to the far right is the hunter's brother.

At the butchery site I would expect to find many more faunal remains of larger animals that are unable to be carried whole back to a base camp or habitation site. I would also expect there to be a higher occurrence of animal parts that are considered to be low utility. At the habitation site, I would expect to see many more faunal remains of smaller animals and only high utility faunal remains of larger animals.

foraging

Behavior associated with recognizing, searching for, capturing, and consuming food - Foraging was the principal mode of human subsistence until roughly 10,000 years ago

Transport & skeletal Part Frequency

Butchers make transport decisions in the field based on a variety of factors. How big is the carcass? How much can each person carry? How many carriers are available? How far do we have to go? How many people do we have to feed back home? For gregarious herd animals like caribou, we expect high frequencies of low utility parts to be discarded at the kill site. The inverse assemblage characterizes base camps: high frequencies of high utility parts and low frequencies of low utility parts.

Based on what you have learned about nutritional utility and skeletal part frequency, click the species in the contingency table whose deviation from anatomical expectations is most likely explained by transport history. Hare | Dog | Gazelle | Eland Skull: 13 | 2 | 7 | 8 Axial: 7 | 2 | 4 | 0 Upper Limb: 12 | 2 | 4 | 0 Lower Limb: 13 | 2 | 6 | 5

Eland (Eland can weigh as much as 700 kg and represent an enormous amount of meat. When faced with transporting an animal of this size, people make rational decisions about what to carry and what to abandon. It might be expected that hunters would abandon skulls and lower limbs in the field because neither contain much edible tissue. However, both skulls and lower limbs contain many dense, easily identifiable bones which, if transported, are likely to be recovered and identified. Meatier bones, by contrast, may be stripped of meat and abandoned in the field. Perhaps that is what is suggested here?)

Sedentary Foragers

European mesolithic, Jomon, Natufian, broad spectrum foraging with emphasis on certain species, stayed in one place year round, large settlements and dwellings, high population, heavy reliance on storage, may or may not have pottery -increased offspring

People have developed tools for hunting and for farming. Drag each tool to the appropriate category.

Farming - pitchfork - hoe Hunting - spear - bow - quiver

Wild Foods

For humans, the advantage of wild foods is their immense variety, both among and within species. Their disadvantages can include the timing and location of availability, not to mention that some of them will kill you if you make them angry! The reduction in human dietary diversity through time represents a shift in the ratio of wild to domestic species. Wild foods also are a precious genetic storehouse of resistance to disease and climate stress worthy of saving.

Plant Resources

Humans have long used plants for everything from food to medicine to clothing. It is difficult to trace the earliest use of plant resources because they leave faint evidence. Use polishes on 1.5 million-year-old stone tools confirm plant food processing by early people. Knowledge of how to use plants had to be learned by trial and error, and this knowledge was passed on. We are still learning. In the case of medicines, we are trying to preserve what is still known before it is gone.

At work: Understanding Subsistence Change, Emily Lena Jones, PhD, Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico

I'm an environmental archaeologist and zooarchaeologist. My research focuses on understanding changing human-environment interactions through time. Though I occasionally do fieldwork, most of my research takes place in the lab. From 2001 through 2005, I worked on a project examining changing human diet at the end of the Upper Paleolithic (from about 13,000 to 10,000 radiocarbon years BP) in the Dordogne region of Southwestern France. During most of the Upper Paleolithic, human diets in the Dordogne seem to have focused on large game like reindeer, red deer (known as elk in North America), and horse. But during the end of the Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic, people began eating a lot of smaller game: birds, fish, and especially the wild European rabbit. Why were people eating so much rabbit during this transitional period? In particular, I wanted to know if people were hunting rabbit in the same way they seemed to be hunting large game (that is, one at a time on the landscape) or if they were taking rabbits en masse (in sets). When environmental conditions are right, wild European rabbit builds large, complex, easily visible warrens. Because these warrens are so easy to see, people can take rabbits directly from these warrens. When people harvest rabbits this way, they are using an en masse strategy. Warren harvesting is well documented in historic Europe from the ancient Romans through modern times. All that's needed to warren harvest is a flushing agent (water, fire, and hunting dogs have all been used) and a way to capture the rabbits as they exit the warren (nets can be used, but just having enough people to help also works). Upper Paleolithic people could have been harvesting rabbits directly from the warren. They had the necessary technology. But were they? To answer this question, I studied the demography (population composition) of zooarchaeological rabbit collections. Rabbits collected from warrens should have a different demographic signature from those hunted on the landscape. Warrens are used by rabbits for breeding, so the rabbits in warrens are usually adult females and newborns. Outside of warrens, however, the rabbits most commonly taken by humans are adult males. I constructed mortality profiles (charts that show the age and sex of the rabbits in the collections) from Paleolithic zooarchaeological assemblages to get an idea of the demography of rabbits hunted. One site, Moulin du Roc, contained predominantly adult, male rabbits. This suggests that the prehistoric inhabitants of Moulin du Roc were hunting rabbits singly on the landscape. Another site, Pont d'Ambon, contained a relatively high frequency of female and very young rabbits, suggesting warren-based hunting. In addition, the relative abundance of both female and juvenile rabbits increased through time, so it seems that people did more and more warren-based hunting at Pont d'Ambon as time went on. I was excited to discover warren-based hunting at Pont d'Ambon, but even more interested to see that people were hunting rabbits in different ways in the same region. In recent years, I've been exploring other zooarchaeological rabbit assemblages from Upper Paleolithic France and Spain in order to better understand the factors that may have influenced this variability. Changing rabbit biogeography, site seasonality, and local environmental conditions may all have influenced decisions about how to hunt rabbits.

Structural Preservation of Macrobotanical Remains

Macrobotantical remains are often preserved when carbonized, but carbonized remains can be structurally brittle. Careful excavation, and the use of techniques like flotation and water screening help recover them in identifiable condition. The abrasion inherent in dry-screening could destroy potentially identifiable fragments of charcoal, limiting their analytic utility. Thus, often samples are taken during excavation that have been specially earmarked for flotation analysis.

Preservation & Storage

Many foods resist spoilage if they can be dehydrated while still fresh. Meat and fish require drying or smoking to preserve them. Some foragers dried both plant and animal foods to increase storage life and to reduce their weight and volume. More sedentary people depended upon storage to get them from one season to the next without moving their settlements. If the abundant seasonal harvests of certain plants were to be fully used, storage containers were required.

Seasonality

Many plant and animal species are available only during limited periods of the year. Examples are migratory waterfowl, raspberries, and hazelnuts. Moreover, both plants and animals have incremental growth structures, like tree rings, that record the passage of time in their tissues. Archaeologists use evidence like this to help determine which season or seasons of the year sites were occupied.

Phytoliths

Minute silica particles that form in plants. Phytoliths can preserve and can be studied to identify the plants from which they came. Phytoliths recovered from archaeological sites can be studied to reconstruct environments. - Phytoliths are decay-resistant silica bodies found in the cell walls of plants. They are found in fireplace ash, inside fired clay, plaster, and even stuck to the teeth of herbivorous animals. Phytoliths are more difficult to identify to species than pollen grains, but offer equally informative insights into prehistoric plant use.

This contingency table shows the relative frequencies in minimum animal units (MAU) of different skeletal regions of several species arranged from smallest to largest. Drag the species in sequence from most taphonomically altered to least taphonomically altered. Hare | Dog | Gazelle | Eland Skull: 13 | 2 | 7 | 8 Axial: 7 | 2 | 4 | 0 Upper Limb: 12 | 2 | 4 | 0 Lower Limb: 13 | 2 | 6 | 5

Most Altered (to-) Eland Hare Gazelle Dog (-to) Least Altered

Macrobotanical remains

Non-microscopic plant remains recovered from an archaeological site. - As the name implies, macrobotanical remains are large pieces of plants recovered from sites. Flowers, fruits, seeds, leaves, stems, and roots all can preserve in the right circumstances. Much, but not all, macrobotanical evidence comes to us as carbonized fragments of the original parts of the plant. When burned, plant tissue is converted to charcoal that preserves its structural details. Carbonization also makes the specimen nearly impervious to organic decay. Charcoal is tough stuff.

Scavenging & Hunting

One important question investigated with zooarchaeological data has concerned the antiquity and mode of human carnivory (meat eating). African evidence has suggested to some that early humans were "mighty hunters of beasts," while the same evidence has suggested to others that early hominids were no more than "the most marginal of scavengers," taking rancid bits of abandoned kills. Recent experimental archaeology suggests the latter description probably characterizes our early meat-eating habits.

Domestic Foods

People consciously and unconsciously encouraged the reproduction of certain desirable wild forms. For instance, a genetic mutation in a wild ancestor of maize, the presence of a cob, made collecting the seeds much easier. Tame behaviors in some wild animals, perhaps taken as young, allowed humans to selectively breed them. In other species, human understanding of reproductive bottlenecks led them to selectively hunt males and old females, leaving prime adult females to breed.

Animal Resources

People have consumed animal foods for millions of years, as well. Cut marks on the bones of large antelope from east African archaeological sites are a smoking gun. Animal tissues, especially fat, muscle, and milk represent high density sources of nutrition. The ability to take animals at will conferred a great selective advantage to those early humans who were able to do so. Other animal products, like skin, bone, antler, and tendons could be used to manufacture a variety of tools.

foragers

People who make their living by hunting, gathering, and fishing. - people who hunt and gather wild foods. - Foragers are people who hunt and gather wild foods. They don't grow their own. Human mobility is tied to subsistence requirements. - In some areas where food either migrated, or was patchy and seasonal, foragers picked up and moved to be near their food. - In other places where abundant, varied resources were available all year, some hunting and gathering groups were sedentary: they settled down in one place for most or all of the year, positioning themselves to use resource zones efficiently.

How might social differences in a prehistoric community be detectable archaeologically from the study of plant remains from the site?

Plant remains from archaeological sites may be able to detect social changes in prehistoric communities because plant remains can indicate when plant domestication occurred, how plants were used and stored, the intensity of agriculture, and exchange systems (for example, if non-local plant remains are found, it could indicate some type of trade was taking place).

Some tools are used to get food, other tools are used to process food to make it consumable. Drag each tool to the appropriate category.

Processing food - Cooking - Complex food processing tool (peeler) Getting food - Side-notched Mississippian Hoe - Bow (and arrow)

Subsistence Tools

Residue and use-wear analysis can report on prehistoric diet. Residues left on the edges of stone tools and in ceramic vessels have resulted in definitive identification of particular plant and animal species consumed by people. For example, evidence of Ancient Egyptian brewing has been obtained from yeast residue in pottery. Although use-wear identifications can rarely be made to species, we know from their thick "sickle-polish" that certain stone blades were used to harvest grasses.

Food resources

Resource use is technologically mediated. The simple presence of food species does not necessarily make them consumable. Boiling technology enabled people to exploit previously unused nut crops. People have developed a wide variety of tools and techniques with which to process subsistence resources.

Intensification

Sedentism can increase populations, which, in turn, increases the demand for food. What to do? Bigger nets? Taller ladders? Better poison for the arrows? Another solution is to get more food out of the same amount of land. Intensification increases local production by bringing the food supply under tighter control. But how do people intensify? - Subsistence intensification efforts often resulted in domestication.

Sex

Sex is more difficult to determine reliably from most bones. In some species of deer, for example, only the males have antlers. This is also true for other structures in other species. However, if the skeletal remains do not include these parts, we must rely on statistical characterizations of measurements of the bones to determine the sex of the animals represented. But this only works well in dimorphic (two shapes) species.

Microbotanical Remains

Smaller plant remains also preserve. Those requiring microscopic examination are called microbotanical remains. These include pollen grains, the structures that contain the male reproductive cells of flowering plants, as well as phytoliths, cuticles, and diatoms. Despite their small sizes, these specimens offer detailed information about changing local and regional environments, as well as the habits of past people.

The pie charts below indicate the relative frequencies of plant species recovered from three separate pit features at an archaeological site. Roll over each pie chart to learn more about each assemblage. Based on the evidence provided, what was the most likely function of each pit? Drag the appropriate label to each pie chart.

Storage Pit - The floral assemblage is comprised entirely of domesticated food plants. The floral remains were found in a single dense concentration in a pit. Hearth - The only floral remains in this pit feature are carbonized wood. The paleoethnobotanist studying the remains has determined all the wood is oak and hickory Post Hole - These floral remains were recovered from a flat-bottomed cylindrical pit with a diameter of about 40 cm. All are carbonized fragments of a single tree species that were recovered from the uppermost portion of the pit.

Age

The age and sex structure of archaeofaunas can reveal hunting and herd management strategies used by prehistoric people. Zooarchaeologists want to know where humans fit as carnivores. Non-human carnivores typically cull the old, the young, and the sick from prey populations. Anatomical details of many bones and teeth can reveal to zooarchaeologists the age of the animals in the population. Occupation season can sometimes be determined from the age of calves in a herd.

Screening

The archaeological fieldwork procedure of running excavated sediments through a sturdy mesh of known size to ensure that the artifacts larger then the mesh will be collected by the excavators.

Resource catchment

The area from which resources were obtained

Bone Chemistry

The complex biochemistry of human teeth and bones now receives the regular attention of archaeologists. Some archaeologists have started dedicated research programs and laboratories to investigate the ratios of different isotopes in bone, as well as the presence of trace elements. These data can inform us about the use of certain kinds of plant foods.

Cooking

The controlled use of fire was one of humanity's great technological leaps with an instant and profound effect on subsistence practices. Cooking makes many tough foods tender, plus it kills bacteria and neutralizes some toxins. This means that humans could consume a wider variety of foods over a longer period of time. Cooking effectively enlarged the food supply and reduced the risk of consuming some foods. Boiling technology-no more than containers, water, and hot rocks-offered even more.

domestication

The effect humans have on plants and animals when they tame them. Domesticated plants need human tending to propagate and domesticated animals can no longer survive on their own. Domesticated plants and animals are usually different physically from their undomesticated forms.

Archaeofauna

The faunal remains collected from archaeological sediments. They are almost always a sample of the deposited assemblage.

Human Remains

The physical remains of people themselves provide abundant evidence for subsistence, as well as about prehistoric health and disease. Advances in biological science and medical instrumentation have made it possible to examine prehistoric people with cutting edge diagnostic techniques. Fecal remains, stomach contents, and the trace element and isotope composition of human tissues have revealed much about prehistoric diet.

Taphonomic History

The sample of faunal (animal) remains that ends up on a lab table is the result of a long process of accumulation, sampling, modification, and selective destruction. Sampling the life assemblage, the grim reaper takes the old, the young, and the unlucky to create the death assemblage. The deposited assemblage reflects selective modification and destruction of the death assemblage by people and scavenging animals. After deposition, biotic and abiotic processes modify and destroy the assemblages further.

Sharing

The spatial distribution of faunal remains from some archaeological sites can suggest patterns of inter-household sharing. - Ethnoarchaeological research has shown us that the bones of a single animal can wind up in the garbage of several different households as the result of sharing carcasses. By refitting broken specimens and matching left and right elements of the same animal, for example, archaeologists have begun to investigate the possibility of identifying individual related households at archaeological sites.

Pollen

The study of pollen grains is called palynology. Pollen grains accumulate in sediments and can be used to reconstruct plant communities through time. Peat bogs offer ideal conditions for pollen preservation. Pollen exines, the tough silica shells around pollen grains, come in an astonishing variety of shapes that trained analysts can identify and count. By plotting the changing frequencies of pollen through time palynologists can monitor environmental changes, including those caused by humans.

Palynology

The study of pollen preserved in sedimentary contexts to aid in the reconstruction of past environments.

Archaeobotany (or Paleoethnobotany)

The use of plant materials from archaeological contexts to aid in paleoenvironmental and archaeological interpretation. Common sources of archaeobotanical evidence include carbonized wood and seeds, pollen grains, and where preservation conditions allow, plant macrofossils - In addition to their role as food, plants have provided humanity with shelter, fuel, fabric, and tools. Archaeobotany (or paleoethnobotany) is the study of past people using plant remains. Their study has provided us with insights on subsistence practices, domestication, exchange systems, social ranking, and ritual. Archaeologists have developed specialized processes to recover plant remains from archaeological sediments.

Subsistence variability

Today we need to feed billions of people. Foraging people consume a tremendous diversity of foods, but now the vast majority of our food supply comes from just a few species. - Explaining how this happened is one of archaeology's biggest questions. We know that to feed ever-growing numbers of people we have traded dietary diversity for food supply reliability that requires agricultural mechanization. - We have redefined our resources to suit our needs.

subsistence

What people eat, how they get their groceries, and how they prepare their food for consumption

Cutting Bones

When zooarchaeologists begin to count and measure specimens, they leave the world of bones and enter the world of data. They face the same issues of sampling, pattern recognition, and interpretation that face other archaeologists. Their specific research questions and knowledge of processes in the modern world, guide their work. Experiments and ethnoarchaeology can suggest how specific data patterns reflect particular taphonomic events to reveal the stories of each archaeofauna.

Explaining subsistence change : Big subsistence questions

Why did agriculture based on domesticated plants and animals develop where and when it did? Did the domestication of plants and animals precede sedentary living, or was it the reverse? The fact is, archaeologists haven't answered this Big Question quite yet. We do know that in some places, domestication preceded sedentism; in others, the reverse was true.

Potsherds, animal bones, and corncobs were recovered from the pit feature below. What do you infer about the life history of the artifacts and the pit? Also, describe the processes of cultural deposition, as well as cultural and natural transformation, from which these archaeological remains likely resulted.

You could infer that this pit was likely a disposal site at a habitation site of a sedentary community. The items found are likely to indicate the subsistence practices, diet and food storage of the people that inhabited the site.

Subsistence Resources

You will learn: • Many foods must be processed before they are eaten. • It is difficult to see the evidence for early plant use. • People have been using animal resources for food and for materials to make things for a very long time. • Wild foods are advantageous (variety) and disadvantageous (differential availability) as a primary subsistence resource. • Domestication developed across the globe in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. • We can learn about how people managed their use of subsistence resources by studying seasonality indicators. • People prepare, process, and keep their food by cooking, drying, and storage.

Carbonization of plant materials enhances their preservation. Click on the ways in which plant material is carbonized in archaeological sites. a. As firewood in fireplaces b. as the result of intentional burial c. as the result of natural forest and grass fires d. as foodstuffs in burnt houses

a. As firewood in fireplaces c. as the result of natural forest and grass fires d. as foodstuffs in burnt houses

Click on the kinds of microbotanical remains that can be persevered archaeologically. a. cuticles b. pollen grains c. phytoliths d. diatoms e. vertebrae

a. cuticles b. pollen grains c. phytoliths d. diatoms

That early hominids were omnivores is suggested by: a. dental anatomy, microwear, and bone chemistry b. thermoluminescence dates, dental anatomy, and bone chemistry c. radiocarbon dates, dental anatomy, and bone chemistry d. radiopotassium dates, dental anatomy, and bone chemistry e. stone tools, bone chemistry, and pottery

a. dental anatomy, microwear, and bone chemistry

Which of the following is NOT one of the factors allowing humans to diversify and enhance their diet? a. large mammal extinction b. grinding technology c. storage vessels d. domesticated livestock e. cooking fires

a. large mammal extinction

Relationships between households identified in the archaeological record can be assumed because of: a. parts of the same animal found in separate dwellings b. their proximity c. large quantities of faunal remains d. modern humanity's willingness to share e. similar baskets found in multiple dwellings

a. parts of the same animal found in separate dwellings

Which of the following does NOT reveal information about prehistoric diets? a. potassium argon dates b. cut marks on bones c. trace elements in human tissues d. fecal remains e. stomach contents

a. potassium argon dates

Terms or phrases not associated with domestication a. scavenging b. agriculture c. provenience d. human control of animal production e. intensification

a. scavenging c. provenience

This coprolite contains seeds and seed fragments from several species of native domesticated plants as well as feathers of migratory birds. Click the inferences you can make based on these data. a. seasonality b. handedness c. diet d. cognition

a. seasonality c. diet

Fauna

all the animal life in a particular region

Domestic species

are ones whose reproduction is brought under human control; natural selection is minimized. But not all domestic species are food: some domesticates were used to make fabric (flax) or provide traction (donkeys). Some did double duty, like cattle and llamas.

________ is the study of past people using plant remains. a. Plant ethnology b. Paleoethnobotany c. Archaeoplantology d. Historical epidemiology e. Botanical archaeology

b. Paleoethnobotany

Along with plant domestication, ________ was a pivotal event in human history. a. cave painting b. animal husbandry c. making goddesses d. natural selection e. kinship

b. animal husbandry

Zooarchaeology is the study of: a. how bones change from the time of death to the time of recovery b. archaeological animal remains c. zoos in prehistoric times d. animals e. none of the above

b. archaeological animal remains

The study of paleofeces is called: a. faunal distribution b. coprolite analysis c. dendrochronology d. fecal residue study e. archaeogastroenterology

b. coprolite analysis

Use-wear analysis can sometimes reveal how a stone tool was used in prehistory. The "sickle-polish" on some stone blades indicates they were used to: a. saw logs b. harvest grasses c. scrape hides d. hunt reindeer e. cut meat

b. harvest grasses

Sex is difficult to determine reliably from most bones unless the animal: a. was an herbivore b. is a dimorphic species c. has nursed its young d. was full grown e. is still represented in the modern animal kingdom

b. is a dimorphic species

Dental anatomy, microwear, and bone chemistry suggest early hominids were: a. farmers b. omnivores c. carnivores d. herbivores e. cannibals

b. omnivores

Archaeobotany is the study of past people using a. ceramics b. plant remains c. stone tools d. animal remains e. all of the above

b. plant remains

Evidence of Ancient Egyptian brewing has been found in the form of residue of ________ in pottery. a. grapes b. yeast c. berries d. papyrus e. grass

b. yeast

By about _______ years ago, the subsistence base for almost all people had shifted from foraging to farming. a. 5,000 b. 10,000 c. 2,000 d. 20,000 e. 12,000

c. 2,000

Why do hunters often butcher their prey at the kill site? a. fresh meat is easier to butcher so it much be done right away. b. religious practices often demand it c. It is easier to transport just the usable parts instead of the whole animal d. Butchering is a man's job and must be done away from the home. e. all of the above

c. It is easier to transport just the usable parts instead of the whole animal

Click on the ideal preservation environment for pollen grains. a. river gravel bars b. hearth features c. peat bogs d. marine beaches e. parking lots

c. peat bogs

What are comparative collections? a. animal skeletons b. interassemblage variability c. specimens of known types d. archaeofaunas e. bones

c. specimens of known types

Archaeologists use _______ to determine site seasonality. a. all types of nuts b. radiocarbon dating c. the remains of seasonally available plant and animals d. a grid system e. charcoal

c. the remains of seasonally available plant and animals

The study of animal remains from archaeological contexts is called: a. animal biology b. paleoethnology c. zooarchaeology d. archaeology e. paleontology

c. zooarchaeology

What are foragers? a. People who grow their food b. People who live in large stable settlements c. People who domesticate animals d. People who gather and hunt for their food e. People who build elaborate structures

d. People who gather and hunt for their food

What is palynology? a. The study of ancient environments b. The study of ancient allergies c. The study of faunal remains d. The study of pollen grains e. None of these are correct

d. The study of pollen grains

What do mobile and sedentary foragers have in common? a. abundant and varied resources available all year. b. Horses c. Crop Rotation d. They don't grow their own food e. Limited availability of resources

d. They don't grow their own food

Which of the following things is the most impervious to organic decay? a. stems b. leaves c. flowers d. charcoal e. seeds

d. charcoal

Domestication is: a. mowing wheat b. what happens after you have children c. settling down in one place d. controlling the reproductive cycles of plants and animals e. farming and fishing

d. controlling the reproductive cycles of plants and animals

Archaeologists can prove that early hominids ate meat because of the discovery of: a. recent save paintings b. canned hams at Olduvai c. meat particles in preserved teeth d. cut marks on prehistoric bones e. written records of hunts

d. cut marks on prehistoric bones

10,000 years ago people lived primarily by: a. farming b. planting c. herding d. foraging e. all of the above

d. foraging

"Human Subsistence" refers to: a. the growth trajectory of human bone b. paleoclimatic conditions c. especially large archaeological features d. how people get their groceries e. written documents

d. how people get their groceries

Which came first, sedentary living or domesticated plants and animals? a. sedentary living b. domesticated livestock c. it happened simultaneously d. it depends of location e. domesticated plants

d. it depends of location

The study of animal bones from archaeological sites is called: a. microbotany b. archaeobotany c. macrobotany d. zooarchaeology e. phytology

d. zooarchaeology

________ provide the most direct evidence of prehistoric human subsistence. a. Tree-rings b. Farming records c. Ceramic storage jars d. Dental records e. Coprolites

e. Coprolites

________ are decay-resistant silica bodies found in the cell walls of plants. a. Fragmentary plant remains b. Pollens c. Coprolites d. Diatoms e. Phytoliths

e. Phytoliths

Domestic species are used for: a. fabric b. traction c. milk d. meat e. all of the above

e. all of the above

Faunal analysts: a. observe modern people using animals for food b. count bones c. do experiments d. study how ancient people got their food e. all of the above

e. all of the above

Microbotanical remains include: a. pollen grains b. cuticles c. phytoliths d. diatoms e. all of the above

e. all of the above

Paleoethnobotany, the study of past people using plant remains, has provided us insights concerning: a. subsistence practices b. exchange systems c. domestication d. social ranking e. all of the above

e. all of the above

Which of the following are microbotanical remains? a. pollen b. diatoms c. plant remains that are microscopic d. phytoliths e. all of the above

e. all of the above

Which of the following are sources of information about past human food resources? a. isotope analysis of skeletal material b. pollen analysis c. plant residue on stone tools d. food residue on pottery e. all of the above

e. all of the above

Scientists have obtained evidence about prehistoric diets from: a. stomach contents b. isotope composition of human tissues c. trace elements in human tissues d. fecal remains e. all of the above.

e. all of the above.

The ratio of isotopes in bone, as well as the presence of trace elements can inform us about: a. the consumption of land animals b. the consumption of marine life c. certain kinds of plant foods in prehistoric diets d. various trace elements in the diets of early humans e. all of the above.

e. all of the above.

Which of the following is rarely preserved in the archaeological record? a. teeth b. shells c. fish scales d. small bones e. animal fat

e. animal fat

Faunal remains collected from archaeological sediments are called: a. subsistence b. samples c. Taphonomic histories d. zooarchaeologies e. archaeofaunas

e. archaeofaunas

What technological advance enabled people to exploit previously unused nut crops? a. ladders b. fire c. pottery d. shovels e. boiling

e. boiling

The two basic ways humans acquire food are: a. theft and production b. foraging and scavenging c. scavenging and production d. scavenging and theft e. foraging and production

e. foraging and production

Recent experimental archaeology indicates that early hominins were: a. vegetarians by choice b. mighty hunters c. strictly gatherers d. skilled trappers e. marginal scavengers

e. marginal scavengers

Which of the following does NOT contribute information concerning the seasonality of site occupation? a. cementum annuli analysis b. age profiles c. antler conditions d. pollen profiles e. thermoluminescence

e. thermoluminescence

Mobile Foragers

low demography, few possessions, temporary shelters, high land cost, low energy costs, low risks

Faunal remains

preserved animal remains recovered from an archaeological site. Faunal remains can provide information about past environment, climate, diet, hunting practices, and season of site usage. They include animal bone, teeth, antler, horn, and shells. Faunal remains are rare because they are organic and usually decompose rapidly. If present, faunal remains can be recovered by screening the soil or using a process called flotation where the soil sample is dissolved in water and the faunal remains float to the surface.

Studying Plant Remains

• Archaeobotany (or paleoethnobotany) is the study of past people using plant remains. • Archaeologists recover plant remains using specialized recovery techniques. • Macrobotanical remains, such as flowers, seeds, and roots, are usually carbonized. • Microbotanical remains, such as pollen, phytoliths, cuticles, and diatoms, are studied microscopically in reconstructing environment and subsistence. • Palynology is the study of pollen. • Comparative collections are used when identifying archaeological plant remains.

Other Evidence

• Archaeologists are fortunate to have a variety of artifactual clues about what, when, and how people ate. • Fossilized human feces, coprolites, offer evidence about diet, storage, and health. • Chemical and isotopic analyses of human remains tell us about what people ate. • The tools, techniques, and technologies that people used in getting, processing, and storing their food are testimony to subsistence and organization.

Other Evidence Summary

• Coprolites, human bones, and subsistence technologies provide additional evidence of subsistence strategies. • Clues concerning diet, storage, and health are found in preserved human feces, coprolites. • Human bones are studied with various chemical and isotopic techniques to find out more about what people ate. • Use-wear and residues left on stone tools and pottery vessels are analyzed in reconstructing human diet.

Subsistence Resources summary

• Early plant use is studied by analyzing indirect evidence such as traces left on stone tools. • Even early humans used animal resources for subsistence and technological purposes. • The variety offered by wild foods is advantageous for foragers. • There are different reasons for and different patterns of the development of domestication around the world. • We study seasonality to reconstruct the time of year that people were using different subsistence resources. • Cooking, drying, and storage are some of the ways people prepare food for consumption and make food more reliably available throughout the seasons and across years of natural scarcity.

Studying Animal Remains Summary

• People who study animal remains to reconstruct how people used subsistence resources are zooarchaeologists. • Bones, teeth, shells, and even fish scales, are often preserved in the archaeological record. Soft animal tissues are rarely preserved. • Before going home, hunters begin to process game by cutting it up into manageable parcels. • All sorts of processes work on archaeological animal remains before, during, and after recovery. • Faunal analysts count bones, do experiments, and observe contemporary people getting and using animal foods to address questions about how past people got their food and organized its consumption and distribution.

Human Subsistence summary

• Subsistence is how people get their groceries and prepare their food for consumption. • Although there is evidence that early humans ate some meat, plant foods dominated their diet. • Archaeologists are confident about their reconstructions of past subsistence. • Most people got their food by hunting and gathering wild foods until about 10,000 years ago. This is called foraging. • The overwhelming majority of societies have come to rely on domesticated plants and animals as their primary subsistence resources. • Archaeologists are intent on explaining subsistence change.

Studying Animal Remains

• Zooarchaeology is the study of how people obtained and used animal resources. • Hard animal tissues, such as bones, teeth, shells, and even fish scales, are often preserved in the archaeological record. • Hunters butcher all but the smallest animals before carrying them home. • Archaeofaunas are samples of the animal resources people used. • Archaeologists study faunal assemblages by recording and analyzing data, in association with experimentation and ethnoarchaeological analysis. • We use faunal data to address questions concerning how people got their animal resources and how they shared their food amongst themselves.