Tag: comparative anatomy
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Bones That Look Like Other Bones: Rodent Bones VS Bird Bones
Today’s comparative mini-post comes from a question I received from Trisha J. (thanks Trisha!), who asked for a bit of a comparison between rodent and bird bones. Now, while I have written about both rodents and birds before, I’ve never actually compared the two in one of these posts – which is a bit of
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OM NOM NOM or Did I Really Use an Old, Bad Joke to Introduce a Post on Gnawing?
Hi, welcome back to the early to mid 2000’s where we still use jokes like “om nom nom” unironically! Just kidding, I won’t subject you to bad jokes like that for this entire post. Anyway, it’s come to my attention that for a blog called “Animal Archaeology”, I don’t really write that much about the
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Bones that Look like Other Bones: A Mini Post about Foxes and Badgers
It’s been a while since I’ve made a Comparative Anatomy post! But after running into an issue with a possible fox/badger bone fragment, I figured it might be time to make a new one. And if you have any particular comparative anatomy posts that you’d like me to make in the future, please feel free
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Bones That Look Like Other Bones: A MiniPost About Rabbits and Hares
Note: Is it morbid to look at rabbit and hare skeletons on Easter? Maybe. But more importantly, please remember that caring for rabbits as pets is a commitment – don’t buy them as an Easter Day gift for kids if you’re not committed to caring for them! More information can be found here. So, moment
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Bones That Look Like Other Bones: A MiniPost About Rodents and Fish
Yet another minipost in my comparative anatomy series! But this one might be the strangest paring of all. Rodents and fish – could there be any more different animals? And yet, I find that students just starting out in archaeology tend to confuse the two together. To be fair, it’s very understandable – the size
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Bones That Look Like Other Bones: Rodent Week Edition
According to Twitter, last week was #RodentWeek. So here’s another comparative anatomy minipost about some commonly found rodents: squirrels, rats, and mice! Now, when it comes to differentiating between these three, size matters. As you can see from the above photo, there’s a huge difference between the skull of a squirrel and the skull of
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Bones That Looks Like Other Bones: A MiniPost About Birds and Rabbits
I’ve been quite busy doing analysis on assemblages for my PhD project, so I don’t have much time for blogging these days. But in (belated) honour of International Rabbit Day, here’s a quick comparison of rabbits and birds! For the most part, rabbits and birds are quite distinguishable animals. I mean, one has wings and
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On Animal Teeth, or Why I’m Not a Dentist
Since my last post using comparative anatomy was rather popular, I figured I should write a similar post for this week, starting with the most important part of the skeleton for zooarchaeologists (in my opinion) – teeth! In my experience, teeth are the best skeletal elements to recover. Why? They’re one of the more easily
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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
Animal Archaeology 