The study of human subsistence behavior using faunal evidence form archaeological sites

THE STUDY OF HUMAN

SUBSISTENCE BEHAVIOR

USING FAUNAL

EVIDENCE FROM

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

Richard W. Redding

Research TOC

Any country that produces more than 265 kinds of cheese cannot be governed.

—Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle’s culinary-based description of the diver-sity of France and its consequence should serve as a warn-ing to the reader about my attempt to describe the intellec-

tual diversity among researchers who study human subsistenceutilizing animal remains and other evidence of animal use left bypast inhabitants of archaeological sites. Indeed, this activity is sodiverse that arguments have ensued over what the field shouldbe called! Most researchers refer to themselves as archaeozoolo-gists, but others use paleontologist, zooarchaeologist, ethnozoolo-gist or paleoethnozoologist. I estimate that there are over 500individuals worldwide who study archaeological faunal evidenceand, while I doubt that over 265 approaches to the study ofarchaeological faunal evidence can be identified within thisgroup, substantial differences obtain among individualresearchers in goals, methods, and techniques. Any attempt todescribe the field is probably doomed to failure and will certainlycreate acrimony. Hence, I will provide in this paper a personalview of the field, discussing its goals and methods while recog-nizing its diversity.

Before continuing, I would like to emphasize the potential ofanimal remains and other evidence of animal use from archaeo-logical sites to answer a kaleidoscopic range of fascinating ques-tions about the past. How did our earliest ancestors of thePaleolithic periods live and how did they obtain meat—were theyscavengers, hunters, or some combination of the two? How didhumans survive in the frigid wastes of the north during glacialperiods, and how were they able to cross into the Americasbefore the end of the last glaciation? When and why were animalsfirst domesticated for food and other products? How and whywere animals first used for transport and warfare? Additionally,more general questions may be addressed with faunal remainsand other evidence of animal use. How do people make decisionsabout which animals to consume and when to consume them?What is the relationship between decisions made about animaluse and socioeconomic organization? What is the relationshipbetween changing animal use and culture change?

I will begin with a brief summary of the scope of the study offaunal evidence from archaeological sites. This will be followedby a personal view of the history of research in the field. This isundertaken to introduce and explain the broad range of goals andallow readers to recognize and understand fundamental schisms

3

that shape the literature. Finally, I will discuss how I thinkresearch in the field should be done and illustrate the approachwith a discussion of two questions regarding animal use fromarchaeological sites.

THE SCOPE OF FAUNAL STUDIES

As already noted, the study of faunal evidence from archaeologi-cal sites is different things to different people. Some researcherswould argue that it is simply the study of animal bones and shellsrecovered from excavations. However, I think this definition isvague and limiting. A better definition includes a statement of thegoal(s), as in the following definition: The study of faunal evi-dence is a subdiscipline of archaeology whose focus is the evi-dence of human use and manipulation of animals. Researchersseek to identify patterns of relationships in the faunal data fromarchaeological contexts and to explain these patterns. Indeed,researchers have often used bone and shell fragments from sitesin their studies, but arguments about animal use have been madebased on analyses of skin and other tissue fragments, feces, artis-tic representations of animals and animal use, and archaeologicalfeatures related to animal use. Individuals working with areasand in time periods with written records have used these toexamine animal use in the past and, in fact, the use of early textsin Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Europe has yielded considerableinsight.1

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE STUDY

OF FAUNAL EVIDENCE

FROM ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

Why is it important to discuss the history of the study of archaeo-logical faunal evidence? The short answer is that the develop-ment of a field and the way in which its practitioners are trainedconditions the goals and methods of the field. If multiple goalsevolve this may lead to schisms in the field. If methodological dif-

4 RESEARCH FRONTIERS

ferences arise this also may result in schisms. Schisms in a fieldmay yield obvious disagreements in the literature that may bedifficult for the reader in the field to comprehend. However,understanding the schisms and their origins is critical to evaluat-ing the literature. Because authors frequently do not clearlyexplain their goals and methods it is often difficult to tease outtheir biases. People who study archaeological faunal evidence arenot immune to these problems. Recently I was called by the edi-tor of a journal. He had sent out an article on faunal remains froma site in Turkey for review by three researchers and received oneglowing, one critical, and one outright hostile review. He askedme to look over the paper and give him my opinion as to whetherhe should publish the article. He sent me copies of the threereviews along with a copy of the article. It was clear that the writ-ers of the hostile and the critical reviews were on one side of amajor schism in the field, and the authors of the article and theglowing review were on the other side. The criticisms were notbased on the article but on strong disagreements on goals andmethodology.

The following brief discussion of the development of thestudy of archaeological faunal evidence will lead to a discussionof important divisions within the field. Before I begin, however, Iwish to make two facts very clear. First, as I describe the variousapproaches to the study of faunal evidence I do not wish to givethe reader the impression that I am denigrating any approach orany individual who uses that approach. In general, the individu-als who study faunal evidence from archaeological sites are alldoing excellent work and making solid contributions. We differover goals and methods, not intellect or personality. Second, notall of the individuals working in the field fit into the niches that Idescribe.

The growth of the field, from the earliest studies to the pre-sent, has been characterized by a strong relationship with paleon-tology. Indeed, the roots of the field of archaeological faunalstudies are in paleontology. The first break with the paleontologi-cal orientation in archaeological faunal studies occurred in theearly 1900s when some researchers began to focus on questionsrelated to the origin of animal domestication. By the 1950s someresearchers, particularly in Europe, were being trained asanatomists or in veterinary anatomy. These individuals were pri-marily interested in research on the origins and evolution ofdomestic animals but their methodology was still borrowed from

5THE STUDY OF HUMAN SUBSISTENCE BEHAVIOR

paleontology. Those whose approach to archaeological faunalevidence is based on paleontology or veterinary medicine usuallyrefer to themselves as archaeozoologists or zooarchaeologists.These are the “traditionalists” in the field.

It was in the late 1950s and early 1960s that individuals inter-ested in archaeological faunal evidence begin to show increaseddiversification in research goals and methods. This diversificationwas most evident among North Americans researchers. In thelate 1950s some researchers began to develop goals beyond thoseof paleontology. They recognized that archaeological faunal evi-dence may provide insight on human behavior. Most of theseindividuals were trained in North America and had been exposedto method and theory either in anthropology or in ecology andevolutionary biology. Not surprisingly, they began applyingmethod and theory from those fields. The questions that thisgroup has focused on, in addition to the traditional paleontologi-cal questions, include:

1. What were human subsistence behaviors and how didthey change over time?

2. How were past economies organized and how did theychange over time?

3. What do the faunal data tell us about human evolution?

Further, their basic approach to the faunal data was quite dif-ferent. The more traditional approach was to examine the faunaldata for patterns of relationships and anomalies and then toexplain the observed patterns and anomalies by reference to thedata itself or information from other sources. This frequently ledto explanations that were accepted without testing and evalua-tion. As researchers began to use faunal data to ask questionsabout human behavior they also began to use a new approach.This involved the construction of models and/or expectationsbased on ideas about how humans may have used animals, andthen the comparison of expectations to the faunal data. The goalof this approach is a reciprocal relation among theory, explana-tion, and evaluation. These individuals prefer to call what theydo ethnozoology or paleoethnozoology, thus emphasizing theirties to anthropology. The individuals in this branch of the fieldwill be referred to subsequently as the “radicals.”

A very important group of researchers began to appear in thelate 1970s. It was composed primarily of researchers who hadbeen radicals or who had at least found the radical approach


attractive. These individuals had great hopes for using archaeolog-ical faunal data to examine human behavior but they became skep-tical of the assumption that faunal remains are evidence of humansubsistence behavior. They were heavily influenced by develop-ments in paleontology. Paleontologists had for a considerableperiod of time recognized that patterning in the paleontologicalrecord might be due to pre- and post-depositional biasing forces,hence paleontological samples were not a direct reflection of theliving community. Articles on studies of how fossil samples hadbeen biased by formational processes began appearing in the1950s. This study of the formational processes in the paleontologi-cal record is referred to as taphonomy. A seminal article in paleon-tological taphonomy was published in 1969 by M. R. Voorhies,“Taphonomy and Population Dynamics of an Early PlioceneVertebrate Fauna, Knox County, Nebraska.”2 This article influ-enced many of those who were working with archaeological faunaldata and by 1975 articles on taphonomic processes at archaeologi-cal sites were appearing. This group of researchers has become soimportant that taphonomic studies of archaeological faunas havecome to dominate the methodological literature. In general, indi-viduals in this group refer to their work as archaeozoology,although a few see themselves as ethnozoologists. I will refer tothis group of researchers as the “taphonomists.”3

Most taphonomists would like to be able to examine changesin human subsistence behavior and cultural change using faunaldata but feel they must first determine what patterns of relation-ships in the data reflect human behavior. The group includesindividuals who think that fauna cannot be used to examinehuman behavior, “depressed taphonomists,” and those who thinkthat they can compensate for the taphonomic processes, “tapho-nomic optimists.” This latter group of researchers study carcasshandling by modern humans and non-human carnivores and thebiasing effect of natural processes in an attempt to understandhow faunal remains accumulate in an archaeological context.

In the early 1980s a number of researchers appeared whowere trained and see themselves primarily as archaeologists. Likeother archaeologists, they specialize in the study of some archaeo-logical data set like ceramics, lithics, or in their case, fauna. Theyare archaeologists who use data on human subsistence behaviorto address archaeological problems. Individuals in this grouptend to be radicals but prefer to call themselves anthropologicalarchaeologists.


As a final note to this section, I need to mention a differentapproach to animal use at archaeological sites that developedamong classical and biblical archaeologists, Egyptologists, andhistorians. A number of researchers in these fields have usedancient texts, carvings, and paintings to document and exploreanimal use by humans.4 The questions they sought to answerhave been:

1. What species and breeds were used and what were theycalled ?

2. What were they used for?3. How were they used?

Although their research has focused on quite different ques-tions than the traditionalists or the radicals, I have found itextremely useful.

SCHISMS

I believe two major schisms plague the study of archaeologicalfaunal evidence at present. The first schism is based on percep-tions of what goals are valid for the field. The second is based ona disagreement over what is represented by patterns of variationin archaeological faunal remains.

On one side of the first schism are researchers whose goalsare, at most, those of the paleontological approach previouslynoted. Included in this group are almost all European and Asianand many North American archaeozoologists. The papers theyproduce tend to focus on the bones and how to identify them, onseasonal and environmental reconstruction, and on what waseaten and how it was obtained. They argue that the data do notsupport the deeper analyses of the radicals; they are frequentlysuspicious of theoretically based models, and they haveembraced the taphonomists (particularly the depressed taphono-mists) because they feel taphonomy supports this position.

On the other side of the first schism are individuals whosegoals, in addition to those listed above, are to explain the evolu-tion of human subsistence behavior. Included in this group are,primarily, some North American and British archaeologists spe-cializing in faunal evidence and ethnozoologists.5 This groupincludes the radicals and many of the taphonomic optimists.


They tend to produce theoretically based models that relate fau-nal remains to human behavior and cultural change.

The second major schism exists primarily among NorthAmerican researchers. On one side are the depressed taphono-mists, who consider faunal data to be heavily biased by tapho-nomic factors. They feel, at least at present, that little can be donewith faunal remains other than to tease out the taphonomic fac-tors. The papers they produce may explain how to identify andquantify faunal remains, seasonality, and environmental recon-struction, but frequently focus as well on understanding thetaphonomic factors that have altered the faunal assemblage. Thisgroup publishes studies on recent assemblages, how they arebiased, or how to identify the activities of biasing agents.Examples include studies on:

1. modern hunters, their butchering patterns, and whatbody parts they return to the site

2. the disposal of bones by modern hunter-gatherer groupsand how the assemblages are modified by forces after siteabandonment

3. deposits of bones from the dens of scavengers and carni-vores

4. relative survivability of different bones

On the other side of the second schism are researchers,mostly archaeologists who specialize in faunal studies, who feelthat patterns of variability found in faunal assemblages are mostlikely the result of human subsistence behavior. The articles pub-lished by this group tend to focus on the development of modelsand expectations based on human behavior and the comparisonof models and expectations to faunal data.

Who is right? Probably both groups. The depressed taphono-mists primarily work with sites that were occupied by huntersand gatherers, while the radicals and archaeologists specializingin faunal evidence primarily work with sites occupied by foodproducers. Faunal assemblages derived from sites occupied byfood producers are qualitatively different from sites occupied byhunter-gatherers. At sites that were inhabited by food producersthe faunal samples are much larger and result from more inten-sive deposition. For example, five hundred identifiable bone frag-ments from a hunter-gatherer site might have been depositedover hundreds if not thousand of years, while five hundred iden-tifiable fragments at a site occupied by food producers may rep-


resent one week’s garbage. At a site in Iran, Tepe Sharafabad, weencountered a large garbage pit ten meters long, four metersacross, and about four meters deep. The pit dated to about 3400B.C. We excavated a 1.5-meter-wide trench through the garbagepit that provided us with about a 15 percent sample of its con-tents. The bone fragments in the sample were very well preservedand showed little evidence of mechanical battering or carnivoregnawing. This along with the stratigraphy suggests that the pitwas rapidly filled and little disturbed. The excavation yielded1,177 limb and skull fragments from sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle.Based on the stratigraphy, the four meter deep deposit representshuman subsistence behavior over only 2.5 years!6 Clearly, biasingof the samples by taphonomic processes is much more likely athunter-gatherer sites than at those occupied by food producers.

I was working on an Old Kingdom village site, dating toabout 2200 B.C., in the Nile Delta of Egypt when the site was vis-ited by a taphonomist. After examining some of the bone frag-ments from the site and finding evidence of carnivore and rodentchewing, he asked how I knew any of the bones I was examiningwere the result of human activity. I replied that the problem I hadwas not in determining which elements were the result of humanactivity but which ones were not. This, I think, captures theessence of the difference between the two groups.

HOW I STUDY ARCHAEOLOGICAL

FAUNAL EVIDENCE

I am one of the radicals who think of themselves as anthropologi-cal archaeologists who study the evolution of human subsistencebehavior. Like all researchers in the field, my perspective shapeswhat I see as interesting problems to work on and how Iapproach those problems. My perspective has been shaped by myeducational background, which is strongly based in evolutionaryecology and evolutionary theory. I believe the study of the evolu-tion of human subsistence behavior is critical to understandingthe evolution of human behavior. In my view, the study ofarchaeological faunal evidence addresses one component ofhuman subsistence behavior.

For many the research process starts with the identification of


animal remains from archaeological contexts. However, I wouldargue that if faunal remains and evidence are going to provide realinsight into human behavior, they will do so only if we use faunato test ideas about human subsistence behavior. To accomplishthis, we must begin with models of human subsistence behaviorthat suggest what we might find at sites and where we might lookfor patterns of relationships. Because we are in the early stages ofthe development of theory in the study of archaeological faunalevidence, the models that are being used are relatively simple.Particularly important are models that make minimal assumptionsabout human subsistence behavior. Such models form a baselineagainst which we can compare the archaeological faunal data. Iwill illustrate this approach with two examples.

Scavenger or Schlepper?

Dexter Perkins and Patricia Daly published a study in ScientificAmerican in 1968 on the fauna from the site of Suberde in south-western Turkey.7 Suberde is an early Neolithic site dating toabout 7000 B.C. Based on an examination of the animal bone frag-ments recovered, Perkins and Daly concluded that the ancientresidents of Suberde obtained meat by hunting, primarily sheep,goats, pigs, deer, and cattle. They noted in their analysis a dispar-ity between the kinds of body parts found for large bovids (cattle)and medium bovids (sheep and goats).8 The limb bones of ani-mals can be divided into two types. The first are limb bones likethe scapula, humerus, radius, ulna, femur, and tibia that areenclosed in large masses of muscle. These may be referred to asmeat-bearing limb bones or proximal limb bones.9 The secondtype are the sinewy bones of the hand and foot, the metapodials,podials, and phalanges. These may be referred to as non-meat-bearing limb bones or distal limb bones.10 In the sample of cattleat Suberde, meat-bearing limb bones were scarce when comparedto the meat-bearing bones for sheep and goats.

The foot bones of sheep and goats [non-meat-bearing] com-prised about 55 percent of the combined total; the leg [meat-bearing] bones made up the remaining 45 percent. With theoxen 83 percent of the bones were foot bones and only 17percent were leg bones.11

Perkins and Daly suggest that this difference between cattle


and sheep/goats is because cattle were treated differently by theancient inhabitants of Suberde than were sheep and goats.Perkins and Daly maintain that cattle were probably butcheredaway from the base camp. The hide was stripped off the carcassand the feet, which contain the non-meat-bearing limb bones,were left attached to it. The meat that was stripped from thebones and most of the meat-bearing limb bones were discarded atthe butchering site. The meat was placed into the hide and thecombined package was dragged (schlepped) back to the basecamp using the feet as handles. They noted that sheep and goatsare smaller and, though killed away from the site, the entire car-cass could be easily carried back. The proposed disparity betweenlarge and small bovids in body part distribution resulting fromdifferences in butchering and transport Perkins and Daly namedthe “schlepp effect.”

The schlepp effect became a standard explanation in the liter-ature for a disparity between large and medium-small bovids inpercentage of meat-bearing versus non-meat-bearing limbs in thesample. Its use by Richard Klein in the analysis of the fauna fromCave 1 of the Klasies River Mouth Sites, a series of Middle StoneAge sites in South Africa, has resulted in considerable contro-versy.12 In particular, Lewis Binford has attacked the use of theschlepp effect and the associated assumption that the occupantsof the site were hunters.13 Binford, using the same data, arguesthat the occupants of Cave 1 scavenged the remains of largerbovids and may have hunted the small and medium bovids.14 Toquote the respective authors:

The basic observation to be explained is a striking contrastbetween smaller bovids and larger bovids in the degree towhich skeletal part abundance departs from anatomicalexpectations. It tends to be significantly more uneven or dis-crepant in the larger bovids, and the contrast is more thanlocally interesting, since it also tends to characterize mostother archaeological occupation sites where smaller andlarger ungulates occur.…as I show below, for Klasies , andmost comparable sites, pre-excavation differential transportand/or differential destruction are far more likely explana-tions.15

In short, the bias present among the bones from the largeanimals is the very pattern that attracted me to the study ofthe material—a pattern of high head-and-lower-limb-bonefrequencies, the pattern that all actualistic evidence sug-gested should be characteristic of a scavenged assemblage.16


This controversy has involved one book, a number of articles,book reviews and several authors. The fauna from Cave 1 at theKlasies River Mouth and its interpretation now has larger impli-cations because of attempts to expand the use of Binford’s andKlein’s explanations to other sites in other areas and indeed toestablish strategies of human subsistence behavior during thePleistocene.

Critical to both authors’ analyses is the assumption that thepercentage of non-meat-bearing fragments in the sample of limbfragments found among the small and medium-small categoriesof bovids is “normal” and it is the anomalous percentage of themedium-large and large categories of bovids that requires expla-nation. This assumption needs to be carefully examined. This canbe done with a simple, baseline model I have developed to exam-ine body part representation in sites.

The goal of constructing a baseline model for body part rep-resentation in this case is to establish an expected percentage ofnon-meat-bearing fragments in the sample of limb fragments,given the assumption that complete carcasses are returned to thesite. This is the simplest case and involves the simplest assump-tion. I start by noting that larger limb bones tend to break intoproximal and distal fragments, and indeed these are the generalcategories we use in classifying fragments of large limb bonesfrom archaeological contexts. Given this assumption and a skele-ton of a bovid (all bovids should have the same number of limbbones), one can count bones and using expected fragmentation,establish expected counts for meat-bearing and non-meat-bearingfragments. The expected counts for Cave 1 for an entire skeletonare fifty-two for non-meat-bearing limb fragments and twenty-two for meat-bearing fragments. Thus, if complete skeletons ofbovids are being returned to the site then non-meat-bearingbones should form 70 percent of the sample of limb bones.

Using the counts provided by Klein and calculating percent-ages of non-meat-bearing fragments in the total sample of limbfragments, the following percentages are observed:

large bovids, 79.1 percentmedium-large bovids, 68.6 percentmedium-small bovids, 44.4 percentsmall bovids, 35.4 percent

The percentages for the large and medium-large bovids are


close to what one would expect if whole animals were beingreturned to the site. Clearly the percentages for the small andmedium-small bovids are not as expected if whole animals werebeing returned to the site. The observed percentages for smalland medium-small bovids indicate that non-meat-bearing frag-ments are relatively underrepresented in the sample. Rememberthat Klein and Binford both assumed that for the larger categoriesof bovids, non-meat-bearing fragments were over-represented inthe sample. What appears to be true from my analysis is that non-meat-bearing fragments in large bovids are occurring in about thepercentage expected if whole animals are being returned to thesite and are relatively underrepresented in the small andmedium-small bovids.

Is there a reasonable explanation of the relative underrepre-sentation of non-meat-bearing fragments in the samples for smalland small-medium bovids? The site was excavated using one-halfinch screens to recover the small fragments of bone and othersmall artifacts. The majority of the non-meat-bearing bones arecarpals and tarsals, the small bones of the feet. Not surprisingly,in the larger bovids the carpals and tarsals are much larger thanin the smaller bovids. Could we be seeing the effect of poorrecovery of the carpals and tarsals from the smaller bovid cate-gories? If carpals and tarsals are being recovered in the percent-age they occur in the carcass then 59 percent of the limb bonesrecovered should be carpals or tarsals. Interestingly, the observedpercentages for Cave 1 are:

large bovids, 43.5 percentmedium-large bovids, 22.3 percentmedium-small bovids, 4.7 percentsmall bovids, 2.6 percent

These data show that carpals and tarsals are underrepre-sented in the samples for all sizes of bovids, but the underrepre-sentation for the medium-small and small bovids is dramatic.Clearly for these size categories of bovids, carpals and tarsals aremissing from the samples in substantial numbers. This is a pat-tern congruent with the loss of carpals and tarsals through thescreen. A further test of this explanation for the underrepresenta-tion of the carpals and tarsals of the medium-small and smallbovids is possible by looking at the expected percentage of theother non-meat-bearing bones, the metapodials. These bones (the


longer bones of the feet) are about the size of the meat-bearinglimb bones. Fragments of metapodials should not have been lostthrough the screens at the same rate as the much smaller carpalsand tarsals and, hence, should occur in about the expected per-centage. The expected percentage of metapodial fragments in thesample of limb fragments is 10 percent. The observed percentagesare:

large bovids, 14 percentmedium-large bovids, 10 percentmedium-small bovids, 7.5 percentsmall bovids, 3.8 percent

These data indicate metapodials are not extremely underrep-resented, except in the small bovids. Hence, the most reasonableexplanation for the underrepresentation of non-meat-bearingfragments in the samples for medium-small and small bovids isthat the carpals and tarsal were lost during excavation, probablythrough the screen.

Klein and Binford both maintain that the pattern to explain inthe fauna from Cave 1 of the Klasies River Mouth is the over-rep-resentation of non-meat-bearing fragments in large bovids. Thisanalysis indicates that non-meat-bearing fragments are not over-represented in large bovids and that the important pattern toexplain is the underrepresentation of non-meat-bearing frag-ments in medium-small bovids! A simple explanation for theobserved underrepresentation is the loss of small and mediumbovid carpals and tarsals in the excavation process. This exampleillustrates the danger of attempting to explain patterns of rela-tionships in the archaeological record without first constructingbaseline models.

The study of animal evidence from sites associated with earlyhumans has potential for solving some of the issues involvingearly human subsistence behavior. In fact it is probably onlythrough the study of faunal remains that we will be able to deter-mine whether the early humans obtained meat by hunting, scav-enging, or a combination of the two. Interesting and excitingwork is being done on the faunal remains from many earlysites—how faunal remains accumulate in archaeological contextsand how faunal remains may be biased over time by physical fac-tors.


Management Strategies and Tactics for Domestic Animals

in the Ancient Middle East

I have put considerable effort into developing a baseline model toexamine tactics of domestic animal use at archaeological sites inthe Middle East and North Africa.17 The model is based on twodata sets. The first is recent reproductive, production, survivor-ship, feeding, and physiological data published for unimprovedbreeds of domestic animals kept in the Middle East and NorthAfrica. Most of this information has been obtained from the ani-mal management literature. The second is ethnographic data ondomestic animal use by agricultural and pastoral groups in theMiddle East and North Africa. I have synthesized these data toyield expectations for four variables that reflect animal manage-ment practices, estimates of which can be recovered from archae-ological samples. These four variables are:

1. Species ratios (e.g., the ratio of sheep to goats, orsheep/goats to cattle). A direct estimate of species ratiosfor sites has been obtained from the relative abundance offragments of each taxa.

2. Survivorship for each domestic taxa. An estimate of sur-vivorship for each taxa at a site can be derived from bonefusion data and tooth eruption data.18 The data is usuallypresented in the form of a curve with the x-axis represent-ing increasing age (usually in months) and the y-axis rep-resenting increasing percentage of animals surviving. Apoint on the curve is an estimate of the percentage of ani-mals born that survive to that age.

3. Sex ratio for each domestic taxa. A direct estimate of sexratio for each taxa at a site can be derived from a numberof sources.19

4. Body part distribution for each domestic taxa. An esti-mate of the relative abundance of body parts for each taxaat a site can be derived from counts of fragments.

The model is based on three important assumptions. The firstis that the site is primarily a producing/consuming site (themajority of animals produced at the site are consumed locally). Asecond is that the goal of the management system is herd secu-rity. The third is that the sample is a complete representation of


the activities at the site. The model yields predictions about fourvariables that provide evidence of animal management practices.

The model uses species ratios for cattle, sheep, goats, andpigs as an indicator of subsistence tactics and management prac-tices. The species ratios only provide the initial expectations forthe other three variables (survivorship, sex ratios, and body partdistribution). If the other three variables do not conform withexpectations set by the species ratios, then we must examine thepossibility that the assumptions have been violated (e.g., the ani-mals at the site are not being obtained locally and/or the localherders are engaged in some form of specialized production).

As previously noted, species ratios are the first variableexamined because they provide the best first estimate of the man-agement tactics. Certainly the exact value for any species ratiomay be affected by local environmental conditions but in generalthe numbers and ranges I describe should obtain if flocks andherds are being maintained locally with a goal of herd security.The ratio of sheep/goats to cattle is an estimator of the degree ofinvolvement of the occupants in intensive agriculture. When cat-tle are consumed in about the same numbers or in greater num-bers than sheep and goats at a site (a ratio of 1:1 or less), the areaaround the site was intensively farmed. A ratio of 2:1 or 5:1reflects a mixed herding and farming strategy. If the ratio ishigher, the site was probably a locus of sheep/goat pastoralism.The ratio of sheep to goat should vary inversely to the ratio ofsheep/goat to cattle. That is, as cattle increase in the sample soshould the number of goats in the flocks. If the site was a centerof sheep/goat pastoralism the ratio of sheep to goats should beabout 8:1.20

Expected survivorship curves can be modeled using repro-duction and mortality data from recent flocks or herds of unim-proved breeds of any of the domesticates. A computer algorithmmodeling growth in a population based on these data can be usedto model off take. Using these data in a series of managementgoals for maximizing the flock/herd, the survivorship curve foreach domestic taxa can be estimated. These goals includeflock/herd security, meat production, milk production and, forsheep/goats, wool/hair production.21 By comparing theseexpected survivorship curves to those derived from archaeologi-cal samples, we perform a test of the underlying subsistencegoals.

The sex ratio for each taxa can provide insight into the tactics


used in herding the animals and can be used to test the conclu-sion derived from the species ratios. A ratio of males to females insheep/goats consumed that is biased towards males reflects herdmanagement for milk, meat, or herd security.22 This is the ratioone should see given the assumptions of our baseline model. Aratio that is strongly biased towards males could result fromimportation of young males onto the site from other producingareas. A ratio of about 1:1 is due to management for wool produc-tion. Establishing expectations for cattle sex ratios is complicatedby the castration and use of males for plowing. In general, a heav-ily male-biased ratio is expected when males are brought into thesite from other areas. A slightly male-biased ratio results fromherding for security, meat, or milk. An unbiased ratio may reflectthe use of cattle for milk, meat, and plowing.

The percentage of non-meat-bearing limb fragments in thesample of limb fragments may be used to test whether animalsare being obtained locally or being imported. The expected per-centage of non-meat-bearing fragments in the limb fragment sam-ple for sheep/goats and cattle in the Middle East is 66 percent; forpigs it is 73 percent. If the animals at a site are all obtainedlocally, the ratios of non-meat- to meat-bearing specimens shouldapproximate the expected values. Ratios that approach these val-ues indicate that entire animals are being butchered on the site. Abias towards meat-bearing elements is indicative of offsitebutchering or butchering that occurred in some other area of thesite; hence parts of animals are probably being imported to thesite or into the area of the site excavated. A ratio biased towardsnon-meat-bearing elements would suggest on site/local butcher-ing with the export of meat-bearing parts.

I do not have space to provide a complete example of howsuch modeling of management practice for domestic animals hasbeen used with archaeological fauna, but the following is a sum-mary of how it has been used with faunal data from two OldKingdom sites in Egypt.23 One is a village site in the Nile Deltathat dates to about 2200 B.C., Kom el-Hisn. The other site is theworkers’ area next to the pyramids complex at Giza.

The analysis of the fauna from the village site, Kom el-Hisn,indicated the following:

1. The site was a center of cattle rearing but the residentsrarely had access to the cattle meat. Based on survivor-ship data, the residents ate cattle that were either veryyoung or old. The prime, eighteen- to twenty-four-month-old males, apparently were not consumed at the site.


2. Sheep and goats were herded around the site. The goatswere consumed locally but the sheep were rarely avail-able. The prime young male sheep of twelve to twenty-four months were apparently removed from the site.

3. Domestic pig bone fragments are more common in thesamples than cattle or sheep/goat fragments. Pigs werethe most commonly consumed animal at the site and thesurvivorship data suggest that the pigs were managed tomaximize meat offtake from the herd.

The conclusion reached was that Kom el-Hisn was a produc-tion center for cattle and sheep controlled by a central authority.The young males harvested from the Kom el-Hisn herds andflocks were taken to other sites for consumption by individualsworking for that central authority. This yields a number of pre-dictions of how the faunal remains from a site provisioned by thecentral authority should be structured:

1. Cattle should dominate.2. Sheep should be the second most common mammal. The

ratio of sheep to goats should be about 6.6:1. 3. In the samples of cattle and sheep the survivorship curves

should be dominated by individuals between sixteen andtwenty-four months.

4. In the samples of cattle and sheep bones, males shoulddominate.

Fortunately, recent excavations in a workers’ village next to thepyramids at Giza have yielded faunal samples that are the result ofprovisioning by a central authority. In these samples the ratio ofcattle to sheep/goat bone fragments is 3.1:1. At most otherEgyptian Pharaonic sites for which we have faunal data, the ratio isless than 1:1 (0.6:1 to 0.9:1). Sheep/goats are the second most com-mon mammal in the samples and the ratio of sheep to goats is3.3:1. The survivorship data for cattle indicate that 88 percent of theanimals represented in the samples are less than twenty-fourmonths of age. The sex ratio for the cattle material is four males forevery female, an unusually biased ratio for sites in Egypt. The sur-vivorship data for the sheep/goat samples indicate that over halfof the animals represented are less than fifteen months old. The sexratio for sheep/goats is four males for every female.

Comparing the baseline model to the Kom el-Hisn datayielded discrepancies that were used to construct an explanationfor the observed pattern of relationships. In turn, this explanation


yielded predictions that may be tested in future work at Kom el-Hisn. Additionally, the explanation had implications for thefauna from sites provisioned by a central authority. These impli-cations provide insight into the socioeconomic system of OldKingdom Egypt.

The importance of this approach is that it has focusedresearch and yielded considerable insight into the use of fauna toanswer questions about economic decision making. It has evenhelped us focus our basic research on methods. A colleague at ameeting once told me that he had tried applying the model butbecause we are, at present, unable to construct separate survivor-ship curves for sheep and goats he thought the model was use-less. My reply was that at least now we know one place to focusour research—developing techniques to develop separate sur-vivorship curves for sheep and goats—that will yield substantialreturn.

SUMMARY

As should be clear, I believe that archaeological faunal remainshave tremendous potential for exploring temporal and geo-graphic variation in human subsistence behavior. Understandingthe evolution of human subsistence behavior is critical to explain-ing the origin and evolution of culture. However, the potential offaunal evidence from archaeological sites can be realized only ifwe approach the data with some theoretical framework withinwhich we can study faunal remains. This theoretical frameworkwill guide the collection of faunal data; it can be used to directfuture archaeological research and indicate where and how tolook for patterns, and it can suggest productive lines of researchon methodology. At this stage in the development of the disci-pline an important part of this framework is the development ofsimple, baseline models that help us examine faunal data.Specifically, models that predict what we will find in faunal datausing the simplest assumptions will provide us with insight intowhat causes deviations from the expected. The application ofthese types of models to archaeological data has led and will leadresearchers to more complex models reflecting a deeper under-standing of human subsistence decision making.


This is not a widely held position. Many individuals whostudy archaeological faunal evidence are skeptical of the use oftheory and models in explaining patterns in archaeological faunaldata. Others think it can not be done because too many factorshave acted on the samples and the patterns resulting from humanbehavior have been partially erased. My argument is that weshould seek patterns in the faunal data and attempt to explainthem. As an initial research position we should assume that pat-terns in the data for sites, at least those based on food productionrather than hunting and gathering, are more likely to beexplained by spatial and temporal variation in human subsistencebehavior. If this position is incorrect, over time we will find thatserious discrepancies exist between the explanatory constructsand the data. Even if the empirically identified patterns prove tobe the result of biasing processes, by using this approach weshould gain insight into biasing agencies and learn where andhow they affect faunal samples.

Only by trying to explain faunal data in terms of a theoreticalframework will researchers studying archaeological faunal evi-dence make progress in understanding variation and patterningin the archaeological faunal data. Only by creating a frameworkand challenging ourselves and the data will the study of archaeo-logical faunal evidence make a substantial contribution to thestudy of human evolution.

NOTES

1. Studies of faunal use based on texts and faunal remains havetremendous potential. I recommend the following references forpeople wishing to explore this potential: J. N. Postgate, EarlyMesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (London:Routledge, 1992); Ignace J. Gelb, “Growth of a Cattle Herd in TenYears,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 21 (1965): 64–69; Melinda A.Zeder, “Of Kings and Shepherds: Specialized Animal Economyin Ur III Mesopotamia,” in Gil Stein and Mitchell S. Rothman,eds., Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East (Madison:Prehistory Press, Monographs in World Archaeology, vol. 18,1994), pp. 175–191.

2. M. R. Voorhies, Taphonomy and Population Dynamics of an EarlyPliocene Vertebrate Fauna, Knox County, Nebraska, University ofWyoming, Contributions to Geology Special Paper, no. 1, 1969.


3. Two recent books provide an excellent summary of the state oftaphonomic studies in archaeology: Jean Hudson, From Bones toBehavior: Ethnoarchaeological and Experimental Contributions to theInterpretation of Faunal Remains, Center for ArchaeologicalInvestigation, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale,Occasional Paper no. 21, 1993; R. Lee Lyman, VertebrateTaphonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, CambridgeManuals in Archaeology, 1994).

4. One of the most recent and complete of these is William J. Darby,Paul Ghalioungui, and Louis Grivetti, Food: The Gift of Osiris(New York: Academic Press, 1977). A number of early worksusing this approach exist. I recommend E. Douglas Van Buren,“The Fauna of Ancient Mesopotamia as Represented in Art,”Analecta Orientalia 18 (1939). Another interesting general workusing this approach is Alan Houghton Brodrick, ed., Animals inArchaeology (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972).

5. I do not mean to insult my colleagues in other areas of the worldby omission.

6. The excavation, stratigraphy, and archaeology of the garbage pitat Tepe Sharafabad have been described and discussed in twoarticles: Henry T. Wright, Naomi Miller, and Richard W.Redding, “Time and Process in an Uruk Rural Center,” inC.N.R.S., ed., L’archaeologie de L’Iraq perspectives et limites deL’interpretation anthropologique des documents, C.N.R.S. ColloquesInternationaux, no. 580, 1980, pp. 263–280; Henry T. Wright,Richard W. Redding, and Susan Pollack, “MonitoringInterannual Variability: An Example from the Period of EarlyState Development in Southwestern Iran,” in Paul Halstead andJohn O’Shea, eds., Bad Year Economics (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1989), pp. 6–113.

7. Dexter Perkins, Jr. and Patricia Daly, “A Hunter’s Village inNeolithic Turkey,” Scientific American 219 (1968): 96–104.

8. Bovids is the common name for members of the family Bovidae.The bovids include most of the domestic herbivores, sheep,goats, and all the cattle, as well as gazelles, antelopes, and buf-falo. This includes over fifty-five species of herbivores that livein Africa.

9. Proximal is an anatomical term meaning closer to the center ofthe body.

10. Distal is an anatomical term meaning away from the center of thebody.

11. Perkins and Daly, “A Hunter’s Village in Neolithic Turkey,” p. 104.


12. Richard G. Klein, “The Mammalian Fauna of the Klasies RiverMouth Sites, Southern Cape Province, South Africa,” SouthAfrican Archaeological Bulletin 31 (1976): 75–98; Richard G. Klein,“Why Does Skeletal Part Representation Differ between Smallerand Larger Bovids at Klasies River Mouth and OtherArchaeological Sites?” Journal of Archaeological Science 6 (1989):363–381; Lewis R. Binford, Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths(New York: Academic Press, 1981); Lewis R. Binford, FaunalRemains from Klasies River Mouth (New York: Academic Press,1984); Lewis R. Binford, “Response to Turner,” Journal ofArchaeological Science 16 (1989): 13–16; Alan Turner, “SampleSelection, Schlepp Effects, and Scavenging: The Implications ofPartial Recovery for Interpretations of the Terrestrial MammalAssemblage from Klasies River Mouth,” Journal of ArchaeologicalScience 16 (1989): 1–11.

13. Binford, Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths, pp. 184–185.14. The sample of bovids in the Klasies River Mouth fauna includes

at least fifteen species. At present it is impossible to identify evencomplete limb ends to species. Indeed, it is usually teeth andskull elements that are used to identify the species present.Hence, for the purpose of analysis the bones have been sortedinto size categories: small, small-medium, large-medium, large,and very large.

15. Klein, “Why Does Skeletal Part Representation Differ betweenSmaller and Larger Bovids at Klasies River Mouth and OtherArchaeological Sites?” p. 364.

16. Binford, Faunal Remains from Klasies River Mouth, p. 86.

17. Richard W. Redding, Decision Making in Subsistence Herding ofSheep and Goats in the Middle East (Ph.D. diss., University ofMichigan, 1981); Richard W. Redding, “Theoretical Determinantsof a Herder’s Decisions: Modeling Variation in the Sheep/GoatRatio,” in Juliet Clutton-Brock and Caroline Grigson, eds.,Animals and Archaeology: Early Herders and Their Flocks, BritishArchaeological Reports, International Series 202, 1984, pp.223–241; Richard W. Redding, “The Role of Faunal Remains inthe Explanation of the Development of Complex Societies inSouthwest Iran: Potential, Problems, and the Future,” Paleorient11, no. 3 (1985): 121–124.

18. The most frequently used type of survivorship data is bonefusion. Limb bones are composed of at least three parts: a shaftand two ends that form the articulations. Limb bones grow byadding material to the ends of the shaft, in effect pushing thetwo ends apart. When growth ceases the ends fuse onto the


shaft, forming a single element. The ends of limb bones fuse atdifferent ages. For example, in sheep and goats, the proximalhumerus (upper arm bone) fuses at about thirty-six to forty-twomonths and the distal humerus fuses at about ten months. If 80percent of the distal humerus fragments are fused, then at least80 percent of the animals in the flock at the site must have livedto at least ten months. If 20 percent of the proximal humerusfragments are fused, then at least 20 percent of the animals at thesite must have lived to at least thirty-six to forty-two months.Using fusion data for all the limb elements one can construct acurve as described in the article that estimates survivorship foreach taxa at a site. Baby and adult teeth erupt at different agesand by examining a mandible or maxilla one can assign anapproximate age of death for the animal. Using a sample of agedmandibles and maxillae for a species one can also construct acurve that estimates survivorship for each taxa.

19. Two types of data on sex ratios are available. First, there aremorphological differences between the sexes in the pubis and thefirst two vertebrae, the atlas and axis. Second, metric differencesbetween the sexes in some limb bone ends obtain. Note that Ihave not included horn cores.

20. For an explanation of the derivation of these expected ratios andsubsequent expectations for survivorship curves, sex ratios, andbody part ratios, see Redding, “Theoretical Determinants of aHerder’s Decisions: Modeling Variation in the Sheep/GoatRatio,” pp. 223–241; Richard W. Redding, “The Role of the Pig inthe Subsistence System of Ancient Egypt: A Parable on thePotential of Faunal Data,” in Pam J. Crabtree and Kathleen Ryan,eds., Animal Use and Culture Change, MASCA, The UniversityMuseum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University ofPennsylvania, Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, sup-plement to vol. 8, 1991, pp. 20–30; and Richard W. Redding,“Egyptian Old Kingdom Patterns of Animal Use and the Valueof Faunal Data in Modeling Socioeconomic Systems,” Paléorient18, no. 2 (1992): 99–107.

21. At present it is very difficult to separate the limb bones of sheepand goats. The survivorship curves we construct use limb frag-ments that are, in general, only identified as sheep/goat. Hence,the curves reflect some combination of survivorship in sheepand goats.

22. As with survivorship data, the sex ratio data is for sheep andgoats.

23. Redding, “Egyptian Old Kingdom Patterns of Animal Use and


the Value of Faunal Data in Modeling Socioeconomic Systems,”pp. 99–107.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Brain, C. K. The Hunters or the Hunted: An Introduction to African CaveTaphonomy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. This isone of the early books in taphonomy and is constantly cited.Chapters 1 through 8 are interesting and readable.

Clutton-Brock, Juliet. Domesticated Animals for Early Times. Austin:University of Texas Press, 1981. Although I did not discuss theorigin of animal domestication in the main text, this is an impor-tant problem being addressed with archaeological faunal data.This is a readable volume that focuses on the problem of animaldomestication. Its author was trained as a zoologist and this per-meates the text. This book does not adequately address the issueof why humans domesticated animals.

Davis, Simon J. M. The Archaeology of Animals. New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1987. This is the best of the easily available“how to” manuals for the study of archaeological faunalremains. The caveat is that it was written by an individual with a“traditional” approach.

Gebauer, Anne B., and T. Douglas Price. Transitions to Agriculture inPrehistory. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, Monographs in WorldArchaeology 4, 1992. I have included this book, even though itdoes not specifically focus on animal bones, because it presentsstrong discussions on the problem of why humans domesticatedplants and animals. The first two articles examine some of theexplanations offered for the origin of domestication. The otherarticles explore the evidence for domestication in various regionsof the world.

Lyman, R. Lee. Vertebrate Taphonomy. Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology, 1994. Thisis the most recent and complete of the books dealing withtaphonomy. It is written by a “depressed” taphonomist and isslow reading. If you really want to get into taphonomy this is thebook. If you want an overview of the taphonomic approach as ithas developed, see the Hudson book in footnote 3.Unfortunately, the Hudson volume is not readily available inmost college libraries.


Zeder, Melinda A. Feeding Cities: Specialized Animal Economy in theAncient Near East. Washington, DC: Smithsonian InstitutionPress, 1991. This is one of the best books that presents an analy-sis from a “radical” perspective. It is extremely innovative andhas been the subject of some controversial reviews. It elaborateson the model of domestic animal use presented earlier.


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