Dear Zooarchers,
Ximena Lemoine and I have just published the third in our papers on demographic profiling in Sus scrofa in JAS. I've posted copies on my Academia.edu page and on ResearchGate. I'd also be happy to send anyone a PDF who want one. The abstract reads as follows:
Demographic profiling of archaeological assemblages offers a window into the shifting exploitation strategies practiced by ancient societies. High resolution sex-specific age profiles, in particular, have yielded new insights into the evolution of early management practices taken during the initial stages of animal domestication (Zeder, 2001). This paper is the third in a series seeking to develop a method for constructing demographic profiles for Sus scrofa — one of the earliest major livestock species noteworthy for being independently domesticated in both Southwest and East Asia. The first paper in this series (Lemoine et al., 2014) presented a new system for con- structing high resolution age profiles using patterns of dental eruption and wear. The second (Zeder et al., 2015) presented a new method for computing high resolution age profiles based on long bone fusion. Both papers used a reference assemblage of modern Eurasian wild boar for developing these new aging schemes, which were then applied to the large assemblage of S. scrofa remains from the Early Holocene age site of Hallan Çemi (c. 11,600 cal. BP) in southeastern Anatolia — an assemblage that previous researchers claimed provided evidence for early steps toward management (Redding, 2005). Here we focus on a subset of this modern reference collection consisting of 34 wild boar skeletons from Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. We employ a Logarithm Size Index scaling (LSI) technique to examine the effect of factors such as age, locality, and, sex on body size in modern wild boar. We find that even though both age and locality have an impact on body size, LSI values derived from select mea- surements of various different post-cranial elements can be used to classify individual osteological specimens as belonging to immature animals, and, for animals older than about eight months of age, as female or male. We test the reliability of these classifications by comparing the known demographic profiles of the modern reference population against those derived from the LSI classifications. Finally, we apply this new method to the Hallan Çemi assemblage and propose a method for adjusting LSI values to account for temporal size differences encountered between the modern and ancient populations. We also present methods for assessing the reliability of these classifications in the ancient population. We conclude by offering guidelines for the application of this new method to other archaeological assemblages of S. scrofa and other ungulate species that demonstrate strong degrees of sexual dimorphism.
Enjoy,
MZ
Melinda A. Zeder
Senior Scientist, Emeritus
Department of Anthropology
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Mailing Address:
45 Gold Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87508
Phone: 703 626-9118
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From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Kate Grossman [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 9:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ZOOARCH] Moving a Zooarch course online
External Email - Exercise Caution
Dear Zooarch Community,
I am writing to you all to ask suggestions about moving the lab portion of my zooarchaeology class online. My university is shifting to online (or other non face-to-face) course delivery due to the COVID-19 threat.
About the course as I usually teach it:
The semester is split into two parts. The first half of the semester we learn basic zooarch methods. In the second half of the semester, we use class time for seminar discussion of the application of zooarch data to big picture questions. During lab time in the second half, students analyze an excavated zooarch assemblage with my guidance. At the end of term, the students’ data is pooled to make a bigger data set. They then give group presentations on different aspects of the assemblage (taxa, age/sex, modifications, archaeological context and taphonomy, etc.). Probably a familiar course format for many of you.
We are now well into the second half of the term. I have ideas about how to move the seminar portion online. I am at a bit of a loss about how to move the lab portion online, however, and am reluctant to jettison it. Everyone has started analyzing their assigned bags of bone. Even if I felt comfortable letting these ancient materials out of the lab (which I don't), I can’t give them the bags of bone to take home to analyze (most students will not be coming back to campus after spring break). I can certainly give students some excel spreadsheets with data of my own and have them do presentations digitally with a data set that they didn’t analyze, but if anyone has thoughts about how I can give them the hands on experience (or an approximation of it), I would be appreciate any and all suggestions!
Thanks in advance,
Kate Grossman
--
Dr. Kathryn Grossman (she, her, hers)
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
North Carolina State University
1911 Building, 232
10 Current Drive, Raleigh, NC 27695
(919) 513-0288
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