Ebook: Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany: A Consideration of Issues, Methods, and Cases

In recent years, scholars have emphasized the need for more holistic subsistence analyses, and collaborative publications towards this endeavor have become more numerous in the literature. However, there are relatively few attempts to qualitatively integrate zooarchaeological (animal) and paleoethnobotanical (plant) data, and even fewer attempts to quantitatively integrate these two types of subsistence evidence. Given the vastly different methods used in recovering and quantifying these data, not to mention their different preservational histories, it is no wonder that so few have undertaken this problem.

Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany takes the lead in tackling this important issue by addressing the methodological limitations of data integration, proposing new methods and innovative ways of using established methods, and highlighting case studies that successfully employ these methods to shed new light on ancient foodways. The volume challenges the perception that plant and animal foodways are distinct and contends that the separation of the analysis of archaeological plant and animal remains sets up a false dichotomy between these portions of the diet. In advocating qualitative and quantitative data integration, the volume establishes a clear set of methods for (1) determining the suitability of data integration in any particular case, and (2) carrying out an integrated qualitative or quantitative approach.

---

In recent years, scholars have emphasized the need for more holistic subsistence analyses, and collaborative publications towards this endeavor have become more numerous in the literature. However, there are relatively few attempts to qualitatively integrate zooarchaeological (animal) and paleoethnobotanical (plant) data, and even fewer attempts to quantitatively integrate these two types of subsistence evidence. Given the vastly different methods used in recovering and quantifying these data, not to mention their different preservational histories, it is no wonder that so few have undertaken this problem.

Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany takes the lead in tackling this important issue by addressing the methodological limitations of data integration, proposing new methods and innovative ways of using established methods, and highlighting case studies that successfully employ these methods to shed new light on ancient foodways. The volume challenges the perception that plant and animal foodways are distinct and contends that the separation of the analysis of archaeological plant and animal remains sets up a false dichotomy between these portions of the diet. In advocating qualitative and quantitative data integration, the volume establishes a clear set of methods for (1) determining the suitability of data integration in any particular case, and (2) carrying out an integrated qualitative or quantitative approach.

---

In recent years, scholars have emphasized the need for more holistic subsistence analyses, and collaborative publications towards this endeavor have become more numerous in the literature. However, there are relatively few attempts to qualitatively integrate zooarchaeological (animal) and paleoethnobotanical (plant) data, and even fewer attempts to quantitatively integrate these two types of subsistence evidence. Given the vastly different methods used in recovering and quantifying these data, not to mention their different preservational histories, it is no wonder that so few have undertaken this problem.

Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany takes the lead in tackling this important issue by addressing the methodological limitations of data integration, proposing new methods and innovative ways of using established methods, and highlighting case studies that successfully employ these methods to shed new light on ancient foodways. The volume challenges the perception that plant and animal foodways are distinct and contends that the separation of the analysis of archaeological plant and animal remains sets up a false dichotomy between these portions of the diet. In advocating qualitative and quantitative data integration, the volume establishes a clear set of methods for (1) determining the suitability of data integration in any particular case, and (2) carrying out an integrated qualitative or quantitative approach.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-x
Front Matter....Pages 14-14
Introduction....Pages 1-12
Methodological Issues in Zooarchaeology....Pages 15-36
Methodological Issues in Paleoethnobotany: A consideration of Issues, Methods, and Cases....Pages 37-64
Simple Measures for Integrating Plant and Animal Remains....Pages 65-74
Correspondence Analysis and Principal Components Analysis as Methods for Integrating Archaeological Plant and Animal Remains....Pages 75-95
Front Matter....Pages 98-98
Microbotanical and Macrobotanical Evidence of Plant Use and the Transition to Agriculture in Panama....Pages 99-134
Waitui Kei Vanua: Interpreting Sea- and Land-Based Foodways in Fiji....Pages 135-172
Integrated Contextual Approaches to Understanding Past Activities Using Plant and Animal Remains from Kala Uyuni, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia....Pages 173-203
A Tale of Two Shell Middens: The Natural versus the Cultural in “Obanian” Deposits at Carding Mill Bay, Oban, Western Scotland....Pages 205-225
Documenting Subsistence Change During the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition: Investigations of Paleoethnobotanical and Zooarchaeological Data from Dust Cave, Alabama....Pages 227-244
In the Light of the Crescent Moon: Reconstructing Environment and Diet from an Ottoman-Period Deposit in Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century Hungary....Pages 245-280
The Farmed and the Hunted: Integrating Floral and Faunal Data from Tres Zapotes, Veracruz....Pages 281-308
Back Matter....Pages 309-333

---

In recent years, scholars have emphasized the need for more holistic subsistence analyses, and collaborative publications towards this endeavor have become more numerous in the literature. However, there are relatively few attempts to qualitatively integrate zooarchaeological (animal) and paleoethnobotanical (plant) data, and even fewer attempts to quantitatively integrate these two types of subsistence evidence. Given the vastly different methods used in recovering and quantifying these data, not to mention their different preservational histories, it is no wonder that so few have undertaken this problem.

Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany takes the lead in tackling this important issue by addressing the methodological limitations of data integration, proposing new methods and innovative ways of using established methods, and highlighting case studies that successfully employ these methods to shed new light on ancient foodways. The volume challenges the perception that plant and animal foodways are distinct and contends that the separation of the analysis of archaeological plant and animal remains sets up a false dichotomy between these portions of the diet. In advocating qualitative and quantitative data integration, the volume establishes a clear set of methods for (1) determining the suitability of data integration in any particular case, and (2) carrying out an integrated qualitative or quantitative approach.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-x
Front Matter....Pages 14-14
Introduction....Pages 1-12
Methodological Issues in Zooarchaeology....Pages 15-36
Methodological Issues in Paleoethnobotany: A consideration of Issues, Methods, and Cases....Pages 37-64
Simple Measures for Integrating Plant and Animal Remains....Pages 65-74
Correspondence Analysis and Principal Components Analysis as Methods for Integrating Archaeological Plant and Animal Remains....Pages 75-95
Front Matter....Pages 98-98
Microbotanical and Macrobotanical Evidence of Plant Use and the Transition to Agriculture in Panama....Pages 99-134
Waitui Kei Vanua: Interpreting Sea- and Land-Based Foodways in Fiji....Pages 135-172
Integrated Contextual Approaches to Understanding Past Activities Using Plant and Animal Remains from Kala Uyuni, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia....Pages 173-203
A Tale of Two Shell Middens: The Natural versus the Cultural in “Obanian” Deposits at Carding Mill Bay, Oban, Western Scotland....Pages 205-225
Documenting Subsistence Change During the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition: Investigations of Paleoethnobotanical and Zooarchaeological Data from Dust Cave, Alabama....Pages 227-244
In the Light of the Crescent Moon: Reconstructing Environment and Diet from an Ottoman-Period Deposit in Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century Hungary....Pages 245-280
The Farmed and the Hunted: Integrating Floral and Faunal Data from Tres Zapotes, Veracruz....Pages 281-308
Back Matter....Pages 309-333
....