R. Lee Lyman

Bone frequencies: differential transport, in situ destruction, and the MGUI

Abstract Human transport of bones with high food values, and destruction of bones with low density values are the traditionally invoked explanations of the frequencies of bones in archeological contexts. The manner in which these two explanations have been used suggests archaeologists assume the explanations to be independent of one another. The transport explanation is operationalized as the modified general utility index (MGUI) of Binford, and the destruction explanation is operationalized with measures of bone density. Statistical correlation of the MGUI with bone density, while weak, indicates that many high utility bones have low density values while many low utility bones have high density values. Because low density bones tend to be destroyed more readily than high density bones, inferences of human utility strategies derived from bone frequencies and based on the MGUI may be inaccurate. The utility strategies suggested by three archaeofaunas are compared to bone density, and two of these faunas are shown to potentially be the result of differential destruction and not human transport as measured by the MGUI.

5 – Archaeofaunas and Butchery Studies: A Taphonomic Perspective

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the two major goals of butchery analysis within an historic context of several decades ago. It focuses on analytic techniques that have been and are being used to identify the hominid taphonomic agent in butchery analyses. It presents a brief description of how butchering patterns are infer. It also presents an explicitly taphonomic approach to the analysis of butchery in an attempt to integrate analytical techniques and goals into a coherent whole. The chapter also presents an example of butchery analysis that illustrates the explicitly taphonomic approach. It also explores the more recent attempts aimed specifically at identifying the taphonomic agents involved in faunal processing.

A critical evaluation of bone weathering as an indication of bone assemblage formation

Abstract Weathering of bones has been defined as chemical and mechanical deterioration and destruction occurring over Time (the periodic system of solar years). Actualistically documented correlations between the years since animal death and weathering stages, and between weathering stages and depositional habitats, lead to hypothesized relationships between prehistoric weathered bones and exposure and accumulation histories of those bones. Detailed review of those hypothesized relationships reveals accumulation and exposure histories are not readily inferred from assemblages of weathered bones. The relationships minimally involve assuming the values of one or more kinds of taphonomic time which can at best be measured at ordinal scales. Simulated accumulation histories and inspection of actualistic data indicate an assemblage of weathered bones may be formed in various ways. Control of skeletal element type and interdependence, taxon, depositional environment, and subsurface weathering are serious analytical challenges seldom fully met, thereby rendering interpretations of weathered bones debatable.

The Goals of Evolutionary Archaeology

In recent critiques of evolutionary archaeology, Boone and Smith (1998) have expressed a preference for evolutionary ecology, Spencer (1997) for processual archaeology, and Schiffer (1996) for behavioral archaeology. These various approaches to explanation ask different questions and employ interpretive principles different from those of evolutionary archaeology. Some of their questions, methods, and principles overlap with those of evolutionary archaeology, but only evolutionary archaeology simultaneously exploits the temporal dimension inherent in the archaeological record, acknowledges the critical distinction between immanent and configurational properties and between essentialist and materialist ontologies, and builds its explanations of the cultural past from a theory employing mechanisms external to the subject of change.

The influence of time averaging and space averaging on the application of foraging theory in zooarchaeology

Use of models derived from foraging theory to explain variation in prey-abundance indices over time and space, evidenced in the zooarchaeological record, is common in western North America. Such use presumes that models derived from ecologically scaled observations are applicable to archaeologically scaled observations. The influence of time averaging and space averaging, whether inherent in the zooarchaeological record or resulting from analytical lumping, on interpretations of changes in relative availability of prey is demonstrated with real data to mask fine-scale variation. The critical issue that must be addressed at the beginning of any application of foraging-theory models is the specification of the spatio-temporal scale of the research question.

Anatomical considerations of utility curves in Zooarchaeology

Abstract In the past decade many researchers have studied the differential food utility and transport of carcass parts of various animal taxa. Indices of carcass part utility based on those studies have increasingly been used to explain bone frequencies in archaeological sites in terms of human behaviours. Many of the newly developed indices provide potentially flawed measures of human behaviour, however, due to an inverse correlation between the utility of bone parts and the potential for those bone parts to be destroyed by density-mediated attrition. Such correlations probably result from the functional relationship of bone density and associated soft-tissue anatomy. Illusory results will be derived until such time as utility indices are not correlated with preservation potential, or, analytical techniques for differentiating transported and ravaged assemblages that are not dependent solely on bone frequencies are developed.

On the Analysis of Vertebrate Mortality Profiles: Sample Size, Mortality Type, and Hunting Pressure

Determination of whether a particular age profile derived from a sample of prehistoric bones represents catastrophic or attritional mortality depends largely on the frequencies of age classes. Analyses of mortality profiles derived from samples of cervids ( Odocoileus hemionus and Cervus elaphus ) that died catastrophically in the Mount St. Helens blast zone indicate that a minimum sample of 30 individuals is required for a reliable inference of mortality pattern when a newborn individual of the taxon of concern has an average life expectancy of about three years. This conclusion is corroborated by drawing 16 random samples of various sizes from two paleontological faunas, each consisting of one taxon, one with a life expectancy similar to and the other with a life expectancy different from the Mount St. Helens cervids. Pre-eruption survivorship of the Mount St. Helens cervids was controlled by an estimated 20% annual harvest rate. Comparison of simulated survivorship in nonhunted cervid populations with archaeologically documented survivorship may provide insights to effects of prehistoric hunting on animal populations.

Available Meat from Faunal Remains: A Consideration of Techniques

A common practice in faunal analysis is the estimation of diet. Review of the various techniques used reveals fallacies in each and a basic misconception about what was actually consumed. Explicit definitions of consumed meat and available meat and means of employing these concepts are presented. Use of the concepts in an example suggests that commonly used concepts provide estimates that are not realistic reflections of consumed meat amounts.

Relative abundances of skeletal specimens and taphonomic analysis of vertebrate remains

Attempts to establish relative frequencies of skeletal parts as distinctive of particular bone accumulating and depositional agents have a deep history in taphonomic research. Various authors have developed a set of mathematically equiualent statistics and equations all of which are meant to measure the relative or percentage frequencies of skeletal parts. None of these clearly accounts for differential fragmentation of skeletal elements in part because the quantitative units used in them are not explicitly defined. Comparisons of frequencies of skeletal parts deposited by different bone-accumulating agents and reported by different analysts may thus be comparisons of differential fragmentation rather than differential deposition of skeletal parts

Applied zooarchaeology: The relevance of faunai analysis to wildlife management

Abstract Zooarchaeology has the opportunity to expand its analytical horizons into the little explored realm of modern wildlife management by applying the knowledge it gains from its unique perspective of prehistory. Ways in which animal populations threatened with extinction might be protected in perpetuity, identifying which forms or taxa should be reintroduced to which areas to recreate natural biotas, identifying which forms or taxa are exotic and should be removed from an area to create a natural biota, and helping to define the boundaries of biological preserves meant to preserve biota in perpetuity are all subjects to which knowledge gained through zooarchaeological research might be applied. The potential benefits include better informed wildlife management decisions, fewer extinctions, less loss of biological diversity and increased job opportunities for zooarchaeologists.