Hello, my co-organizer Susan DeFrance and I are looking for zooarchaeologists interested in 
presenting papers at the upcoming (August 2006) ICAZ conference in Mexico City, in the session 
we are chairing, "Animals and Complexity: What Can Archaeozoologists Contribute to the Study of 
Complex Society in the New and Old Worlds."  We are especially interested in papers on 
assemblages from pre-middle ages sites in Europe, Asia and Africa, and wish to focus on topics 
having to do with Asian and African states, and European chiefdoms.  If interested, please contact 
me with a proposed topic.  Titles and abstracts will be due in the fall.  The session abstract 
follows:

Animals, both wild and domestic, have been used for a variety of purposes in complex societies 
(chiefdoms and states) -- for food, work, ritual, and a variety of secondary products such as wool, 
fiber, milk, and fuel.  Beyond these proximate uses, the social differentiations within complex 
societies tend to filter down to the use of animals.  Therefore, distinctions inherent in complex 
political systems are often visible in the remains of both past meals and animal refuse in general.  
In complex societies food is often differentiated along lines of ethnicity, religion, status, and the 
provisioning of urban locales with animal foodstuffs and products.  Beyond a general overview of 
the contributions zooarchaeology is making to this realm of investigation, we hope in this session 
to demonstrate similarities and differences in New World and Old World approaches to the use of 
animals by complex societies.   Through comparisons of method, theory, and application among 
diverse complex cultures in different geographic regions of the world we seekto establish dialog 
between researchers working on similar themes.  The session will concentrate on archaeological 
periods covering the first emergences of complex societies and continue on to include more 
recent states and other forms of politically complex cultures.

TOPICS:
Animals that are good to think - Ritual animals
Secondary products in complex societies
Animals of transport and movement in complex cultures
Trade and status animals  importations of exotics
Status  differentiation  who eats prime?   Is it portion or the type of animal
Feasting and Feting  food for the masses, controlled consumption
Mortuary Animals  symbols for the deceased
Contextual information  elite vs. commoner contexts
Ethnic differences within complex cultures
Animal processing
Urban provisioning
Wild and domestic animal use