Zooarchaeology is the study of animals in how they relate to human activities in the past. Discovering middens or waste piles of bone and other debris can help determine the species of animals harvested in the past for food, shelter, clothing, or tools. Looking through the bones and identifying each and every one of them to the best of the zooarchaeologist's ability can allow for an understanding of the breadth of diet in both the number and species utilized. If there is any depth to the midden, careful collection and separation layers can help identify a change in harvest activities over time. From these data notions of climate and environmental change can be created or corroborated with other data.
The first order of business is to separate each bone into the appropriate class. This generally means mammal, birds, and fish. In more southerly regions than Alaska this could also require reptilian or amphibian categories. This is often done by gauging the porosity and texture of the bone. Mammal bones are usually more dense, bird bones are generally hollow, and fish bone have a woody texture.
Once separated a more intensive identification can me made In order to determine the genus or species of the animals present. Zooarchaeologists must have a comparative collection for animals thought to be found in their study area. Sometimes this can be done with an articulated skeleton, such as the juvenile sea lion seen above. Although generally more helpful is a comparative collection in which similar elements (femur, humerus, etc) are kept together labeled with an identification number that ties the bone to the known species of its origin.
Manuals can also be helpful especially when identifying specific features on the bone or when a representative sample of a suspected species is not obtainable. These collections can get rather large and can fill up an entire room, but after many hours of poring over both the known and unknown collections, the process becomes a bit easier.
The problem with a known collection is that it always seems to be limited. There are always more species to be obtained. This is why zooarchaeologists are always out looking for more specimen to add to their collection. Generally this comes in the form of roadkill which often leaves broken or partial skeletons, but sometimes an animal is nice enough to have died unscathed. It's those unknown causes of death when you wear gloves, boys and girls.
A special thanks goes to those listed below for allowing me access to these wonderful bones:
Katmai National Park & Preserve (National Park Service)
Alaska Consortium of Zooarchaeologists (University of Alaska, Anchorage)
University of Alaska Museum of the North (Univeristy of Alaska, Fairbanks)
