A New and Extensive Ethnoarchaeological Dung Reference Collection for Investigating Animal Occupation, Seasonality and Diet in the Past.

Abstract

The Neolithic (c 12,000-8000 BP) is a key period in human history when people for the first time domesticated plants and animals and began living in permanent villages. Understanding and pinpointing important transformations such as the domestication of animals in the Neolithic is challenging. Common methods to investigate animal domestication rely on interpretation of excavated archaeological remains. New dung studies demonstrate the potential to investigate important phenomena such as sedentarisation, animal domestication, secondary product use and animal diet. A new innovative multi-methodological research framework is currently being developed to integrate scientific analyses with ethnoarchaeological and archaeological datasets. Recent samples collected during a CBRL fellowship (2015-2016) will contribute to ethnoarchaeological research based on multimethod investigations into animal signatures using geochemistry, faecal spherulites, phytoliths and micromorphology. These reference collections will provide results which can be incorporated into future archaeological analysis and will be available for use as comparative data to understand archaeological sites in the Southern Levant. When this reference collection has been fully processed it will represent the biggest dung reference collection that exists worldwide.