Tag: animal bones

Archaeology, Comparative Anatomy Guides

On Seals, the Dogs of the Sea

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick1 Comment on On Seals, the Dogs of the Sea
On Seals, the Dogs of the Sea

The other day, a group of archaeologists (myself included) stood around trays of assorted animal bones from a recent surface collection. It was just a cursory glance at the assemblage, but of course the mind immediately starts identifying bones that jump out at you.

“That’s a dog mandible…that’s a cow tooth…that’s bird, for sure…and that’s…a dog too?”

It was a fragment of a mandible that certainly looked like a dog at first glance…and yet, there was something a bit off. After looking at it for some time, it finally hit me: oh, it’s a seal. The dogs of the sea.

Seal and Canine Mandibles

When you start off in zooarchaeology, you start to find big indicators that immediately help you narrow down an identification – little “shortcuts”, if you will. Case in point – identifying seals based on comparing them to dogs.

Above, you’ll see a dog mandible and a sea mandible. Side by side, it’s a bit easier to see the difference between the two. But on its own, it’s not that difficult to mistake a seal mandible for that of a dog. I chalk it up to the teeth shape being very similar, and some slight similarities in the shape of the mandible itself (note – the mandible that was originally in question was smaller than the above mandible, so a bit easier to mistake for a dog!).

So with that in mind, it’s a bit handy to keep that in your mental toolkit. Got a mandible that looks like a dog’s, but something’s a bit…off? Might be a seal!

Seal Skull

Of course, there’s plenty of variation in dog skulls among different breeds that maybe that’s not the best conclusion to jump to, so here’s another tip: check the sort of overall bone there is. Does it look rather porous? Well, that’s an easy sign that you’re dealing with some sort of marine animal! So if you have a mandible that looks dog-like, but has a porous quality to it? Either it’s a mythical sea dog (in that case please send me photos)…or most likely, some kind of seal.

UPDATE: After further conversation with another zooarchaeologist, it turns out that dog mandible might actually be a wolf mandible! Oops…well, point still stands, I guess!

Seal pelvis

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology

On Fish, the Bane of All Archaeologists’ Lives

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick1 Comment on On Fish, the Bane of All Archaeologists’ Lives
On Fish, the Bane of All Archaeologists’ Lives

Well, not all archaeologists…

Here’s the thing about fish bones: they can, and will most likely, be small and fragile in your assemblages. How small and fragile? So small, if you sneeze you might blow a couple hundred of them off your finds tray. So fragile, you might snap a few with a tweezer.

So not the most fun thing in the world to work with. And I should know. I did my MSc dissertation on analysing thousands of them for three months.

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These are fish scales that I counted – by hand! All in the name of science.

But let’s give credit where credit is due: fish, as annoying as they can be to work with, are vital to understanding the archaeological record. As with other animal bones, fish bones can tell us a lot about the diet of the inhabitants of a given site.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg! Fish, like many other animals, can be utilised in ways beyond food (i.e; fish oil). To further investigate this, we can analyse pottery and other artefacts for traces of oil. By identifying and quantifying the specific bones, we can also determine what inhabitants were most likely doing with the fish – if there are many fish head bones, for example, then the processing of the fish was most likely performed here. No fish head bones and a landlocked site? Maybe the fish were caught and processed elsewhere, and then traded to this settlement! Looking into fish species, we can also see how the fish were caught. Once we identify the bones to species, we can look at their seasonality and where they normally are located within a body of water (coastal? deep sea?), which can tell us a lot about hunting techniques and the technology that must have been employed to catch them. This is also very important if there’s a lack of fishing-related artefacts, but fishing is suspected.

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An example of size differences in fish – these are both the same bone, different sizes!

Fish can be a difficult animal to work with in archaeology. As I mentioned before, fish bones can be very small, which makes identification and handling very difficult! Unlike other animal bones, which often at least have some semblance to human bones that make identifications a bit easier, fish bones often look very alien! They are also very fragile, which means preservation is often not very good.

After working with them for a summer, however, I’ve come to realise how important fish bones are to the archaeological record and how easy it is to take them for granted! So here’s to you, fish bones – you are very annoying to work with at times, but also incredibly helpful and important!

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The cleithrum is a bone unique to fish – and also my favourite! It looks like a wing, doesn’t it?

Want to learn more about fish bones?

The University of Nottingham has an amazing fish bone reference website that has saved my neck a few times during my research.

The North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation (NABO) also has a fish bone manual that may be handy for recording bones.

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology

On Birds, or Why Light Bones Freak Me Out

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick1 Comment on On Birds, or Why Light Bones Freak Me Out

Maybe this is a real “duh” moment for me, but the first time I picked up a bird bone (and a rather large one at that), I was genuinely freaked out by how light their bones are! Thinking back, of course, it seems a bit obvious why bird that fly would need relatively lighter bones, but in my defence, it is very unsettling to have a bone be so light when you’re not expecting it.

An Atlantic Herring gull skull and beak

 

One of the skills you learn going into zooarchaeology is quickly finding indicators that allow for relatively quick identifications off-hand. Of course I’m not gonna hand in a bone report made up of five second IDs, but when you’re faced with a pile of hundreds of animal bones, it does help to do a little preliminary analysis using a few indicators you know.

Anyway, here’s two general bone elements that may be helpful to know off hand for a quick ID of a bird skeleton:

The left ulna of an Atlantic Herring gull

The bird ulna is part of the “forearm” and I find that they can often be ID’ed by these bumps that are found running along the bone.

A furcula from a duck

The clavicles of a bird are fused together into an element known as the “furcula“. This is also what is often referred to as a wishbone. Given this is a unique element in birds (and some dinosaurs apparently! I don’t know much about dinosaurs and their skeletons, but I can at least identify the furcula if present – it’s a bit impressive to kids, at least), the presence of this bone should be a giveaway that you’ve got a bird on your hands.

This isn’t an extensive bird identification manual (although hey, maybe that’s a post for another day?), but again, I find that having these small little hints tucked away are handy for getting a start on IDing bones. Look for more of these kinds of posts in the future!

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.

Archaeology, Book Recommendations, Personal

On Zooarchaeology, or Looking at Dead Animals All the Time

by Dr Alex Fitzpatrick2 Comments on On Zooarchaeology, or Looking at Dead Animals All the Time

When you’re an archaeologist, you become very aware of how little the general public knows about what archaeologists do. Fair enough, of course…most people conjure up the image of Harrison Ford (at his peak handsomeness) when they think of archaeologists. It’s not uncommon to get the same sort of questions at the annual family gathering: “Do you find lots of gold?” “How many dinosaurs do you dig up?”

Yeah.

So when you decide that archaeology isn’t niche enough, you decide to specialise in a field like zooarchaeology, the study of animal remains in the archaeological record.

One of the most commonly asked questions I get once I mention that I’m a zooarchaeologist is, “well, what’s the point of looking an animal bone?” Oddly enough, that’s not even a question I get just from my friends and family; even some of my archaeologist peers seem to not understand why I do what I do!

I find that animal remains don’t get their due in archaeology, to be honest. Sure, they can be used as economic indicators and evidence of particular diets, but there is much more to it then that!

For example, let’s say you uncover some fish bones at a site. When you identify them, you realise it is a species of fish that are found in deeper waters far from the coast. What does that mean? Well, the people of this site must have had the technology for deep water fishing. You also see that there are no cranial bones in this assemblage. That could imply that processing of the fish (during which the head is cut off) may have occurred elsewhere – perhaps these fish were caught elsewhere as well and then traded to the people of this site. And are there any burnt bone? If so, perhaps these were consumed fish that were cooked!

As someone who came from a background in anthropology, I find that zooarchaeology is a field in which my anthropology training and my archaeological science training can combine. This is especially true for what my current research involves, which is ritual deposits of animal bones.

As we move into an age where analytical science and archaeology are more intertwined than ever before, I believe it will be things that are often overlooked by archaeologists, such as animal bones, that will become more and more important in unlocking the history of sites.

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These cow bones were the first animal bones I ever excavated/handled!

What to learn more? Here’s a book recommendation:

The Archaeology of Animal Bones by Terry O’Conner (2000) is probably the book to read if you’re interested in zooarchaeology. It is very beginner friendly and Terry O’Conner is a fun and engaging writer. Definitely worth a look for anyone who is thinking about getting into the field.

If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.

My work and independent research is supported almost entirely by the generosity of readers – if you’re interested in contributing a tiny bit, you can find my PayPal here, as well as my Amazon Wishlist for research material.