Coprolite research: archaeological and paleoenvironmental potentials

Abstract

Fecal material from archaeological sites, including discrete coprolites, dung and latrine deposits, can provide important high-resolution information on past environments and human behavior. Coprolites can provide fine-grained, at times even seasonal, information on changes in diet, health, and environment over time that typically cannot be obtained through other analytical methods (Bryant 1974; Reinhard and Bryant 2008; Riley 2008; Pearsall 2015:193; Shillito et al. 2020b). Researchers apply macroand microscopic methods to coprolite studies including pollen, phytoliths, bones, parasites and more to address questions of past human behavior. The past decade has seen the introduction of biomolecular methods such as DNA and lipid biomarkers to compliment macroand microscopic methods. An emerging issue in coprolite research is how best to integrate these diverse datasets to provide a holistic interpretation of the past. This requires connecting specialists in different methodologies to encourage critical analysis of new data, to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, and to establish best-practice guidelines for the multiproxy analysis of coprolites. The increasing interest in coprolites as a source of paleogenetic information also raises ethical issues over how these materials should be approached by archaeologists. To address these issues, the authors organized a session at the 83rd annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology held in Washington, DC, in April 2018. The Coprolite Research: Archaeological and Paleoenvironmental Potentials (CRAPP) session brought together international coprolite researchers with a variety of methodological expertise applied at temporally and spatially diverse archaeological sites around the world, with case studies from North and South America, Europe and West Asia. The papers compiled for this volume were contributed by session invitees.