Zooarchaeology: Past, Present and Future

Author(s): Kenneth D. Thomas

Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 1, Zooarchaeology: New Approaches and Theory (Jun.,
1996), pp. 1-4
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124970
Accessed: 01/06/2009 23:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to World
Archaeology.

http://www.jstor.org
 past,
Zooarchaeology: present and
future

Kenneth D. Thomas

Broken animal bones littering excavation spoil dumps of the BNA (Before New
Archaeology) period is the sort of true-life horror story which teachers might use to
introduce their students to the merits of zooarchaeological investigation, and to show how
we, today, are much more enlightened. Although fine-mesh screening for the tiniest of
animal remains (both vertebrate and non-vertebrate) might only be a small advance in
technical terms, it represents a significant conceptual shift in attitudes towards animal
remains in archaeology. Indeed, any director of a contemporary excavation would lose
professional credibility if they did not have at least one dry-screening unit (and a flotation
and wet-screening system for preference) in operation for the recovery of animal remains
and, even if still sceptical about the value (and cost) of such endeavours, could at least take
comfort in the fact that the smallest antiquities would also be recovered!
The success of zooarchaeology, along with a whole package of other emergent
specialisms (geoarchaeology, archaeobotany, etc.), is of course closely linked to major
paradigm shifts in the parent discipline in the 1960s and early 1970s towards increased
emphasis on explanatory frameworks based on palaeoeconomy, subsistence and environ-
ment - a range of approaches now packaged together as 'processual archaeology'. This
intellectual trend resulted in the cult of the (zooarchaeological) specialist: highly focused
technocrats who literally made it their job to ensure that no respectable archaeological
project could be devised without them. This, in turn, led to demands from students of
archaeology or anthropology for training in the analysis of animal remains, with the result
that many undergraduate and graduate degree programmes now incorporate such
teaching, and numerous PhDs are being produced every year.
In professional terms, zooarchaeology has been quite a success story, with numerous
practitioners now employed in universities, colleges and archaeological research units, as
well as in contractual posts on a diverse range of projects in all parts of the world. The
future is, however, uncertain, partly because the supply of qualified zooarchaeologists is
inevitably outstripping demand for them, but also because paradigm shifts in the parent
discipline threaten to move research foci (and research funding) in new directions.
Zooarchaeologists must adapt by seeking to address a broader range of research
questions, the answers to which will not always be predicated on the assumption that
'bones means meat', and by training a new generation with a greater understanding of

World Archaeology Vol. 28(1): 1-4 Zooarchaeology

? Routledge 1996 0043-8243
2 Kenneth D. Thomas

theoretical issues, including those of other disciplines such as ecology, animal biology,
behaviour and zoogeography. (The potential of such approaches is demonstrated in the
papers by Lyman and Amorosi et al., published in this issue; Lyman also stresses the
employment possibilities which a new cadre of zooarchaeologists might be able to exploit.)

Zooarchaeology, faunal analysis and the study of animal remains

Any new field or sub-field, like zooarchaeology, will inevitably spawn a lexicon of new
terminology - if only to emphasize its distinctiveness. Some archaeologists, and certainly
many biologists outside the field of zooarchaeology, might, however, be confused by some
of the words used and the concepts to which they have been tied. It has to be accepted that
many terms have become so embedded in the language of zooarchaeological discourse that
one feels powerless to free them for their original uses. Although this is not the place to
discuss details of terminology, I will nevertheless take shameless advantage of my editorial
position to make a few points; having simmered in silence for many years, I feel that
dissent should at least be recorded!
Zooarchaeology is, or should be, the study of the past interactions between people and
animals, usually involving the analysis and interpretation of animal remains from
archaeological deposits but sometimes using additional data sets, such as art represen-
tations (see, for example, Holt, this issue), documentary sources, etc. Many practitioners
choose to describe themselves as 'faunal analysts/specialists' who work on 'faunas', or
'archaeofaunas', or even 'faunal remains' (a grand sounding concept, which usually, but
not always, reduces to 'animal bones'). Just why the perfectly good and hitherto
well-understood term 'fauna' should have been hijacked in this way is unclear to me.
Faunal analysts (sic) use it merely to refer to the assortment of animal remains which have
been assembled at an archaeological site, often by a wide range of processes. Many such
faunal analysts appear to be averse to using the term 'animal' at all, preferring instead to
write about 'faunal remains', 'faunal specimens' and even 'faunal species'. Why this
coyness? Are these terms used as euphemisms for 'animals' and, if so, why?
What is wrong with 'assemblages of animal remains' as an accurate, jargon-free term for
the material which zooarchaeologists study? The term 'animal remains' is all-embracing
and, with suitable qualification, can refer to mammalian bones, bird feathers, fish scales,
mollusc shells, insect wing cases or parasite ova, as required. The qualifying word
'assemblage' is also very useful in that it reminds us of the probably diverse origins of the
assemblage which, even in the unlikely event that it was wholly attributable to past human
activities, would have been assembled at the site as remains from animals representing a
range of different natural habitats (i.e. from a number of true faunas) and possibly from
some animals derived from no natural habitats at all (i.e. domesticated species, unless they
could be shown to be feral). Abandoning this spurious use of the term 'fauna' would
liberate it for application to its original useful biological concept and avoid a good deal of
potential confusion and ambiguity. After all, what term would a 'faunal analyst' working
on an archaeological 'fauna' use if s/he wanted to compare their archaeological assemblage
with the true fauna, or faunas, which might have existed in the exploitation catchment of a
site when it was occupied?
 Zooarchaeology: past, present and future 3

The battle for terminological precision is generally a losing one, especially in subjects
like archaeology which have depended heavily on other disciplines for basic concepts and
theory (what a colleague has termed 'concept capture'). Once a concept or term has been
borrowed from another discipline it is inevitable that it will suffer from the effects of drift,
blurring of meaning or, as in the case of 'fauna', generalization to the point where it is
essentially devoid of any useful meaning at all. However, having stated these views, I wish
to assure readers that I have not sought, as editor, to impose them on the various
contributors, and have permitted 'faunas', 'archaeofaunas' and 'faunal remains' to coexist
alongside 'animal remains' and 'animals' (although the admirable review article by
O'Connor shows that it is possible to write interestingly and with precision about
assemblages of animal remains).

New approaches and theory

Readers of this journal will be fully aware that a whole range of 'new' paradigms (in reality
recycled from other disciplines) has appeared in archaeology in the last few years packaged
together as 'post-processual archaeology'. Some might prefer the more modest title
'para-processual' archaeology because the two approaches are equally valid and should
never be mutually exclusive, although one or other general approach might be more
instructive or useful on certain temporal, spatial and/or socio-cultural scales of investi-
gation. Some of the papers in this issue illustrate the fruitful results of an unblinkered
approach involving combinations of older and newer paradigms. O'Connor's general
review urging a broadening of approach by zooarchaeologists, Halstead's consideration of
pastoralism or herding in small-scale societies, Reid's analysis of power structures and the
redistribution of cattle resources and Crabtree's analysis of production and consumption
systems in an early complex society, all demonstrate the potential value of combining
traditional analyses and interpretations of animal assemblages with appropriate ethno-
graphic, social or political models. The cognitive and societal interpretation of animal
remains is taken further in the papers by Bond and Holt, where the ritual and symbolic
significance of animals is addressed in two very different case studies.
A totally different approach to zooarchaeological data comes in the papers by Lyman
and by Amorosi and his co-workers. Here, zooarchaeology is asked to justify itself not so
much by what it can tell us about the lives, attitudes or beliefs of people in the past, but
what it might contribute to the quality of human life in the future. The very positivist stance
taken in both these papers will not find favour with some of the more relativistic
post-processualists, but the questions raised are valid ones and there is reason to hope that
zooarchaeology might make a contribution to improving (or rescuing) the human
environment on local and possibly global scales.

Acknowledgements

I am especially grateful to the numerous reviewers who read and commented on all
manuscripts received. I would also like to thank the contributors for their co-operation and
4 Kenneth D. Thomas

patience in the face of editorial demands. My colleague Dr Louise Martin was a source of
help and encouragement during the process of editing this issue. My apologies to the
reviewer who objected to rhetorical questions in academic papers; I hope he accepts that
they might be appropriate in editorial commentaries! Lastly, I would like to thank the
publishers, and Virginia Myers in particular, for their patience - and for understanding the
problems faced by an editor having to deal with manuscripts received in the middle of a
busy and difficult teaching term.

Kenneth D. Thomas
Institute of Archaeology
University College London
31-4 Gordon Square,
London, WCIHOPY, UK