Elizabeth S. Wing

Antoinette B. Brown

Method and Theory in Prehistoric Foodways

Paleonutrition

Lee A. Newsom

During the vast stretches of early geologic time, the islands of the Caribbean archipelago separated from continental land masses, rose and sank many times, merged with and broke from other land masses, and then by the mid-Cenozoic period settled into the current pattern known today. By the time Native Americans arrived, the islands had developed complex, stable ecosystems. The actions these first colonists took on the landscape—timber clearing, cultivation, animal hunting and domestication, fishing and exploitation of reef species—affected fragile land and sea biotic communities in both beneficial and harmful ways. On Land and Sea examines the condition of biosystems on Caribbean islands at the time of colonization, human interactions with those systems through time, and the current state of biological resources in the West Indies. Drawing on a massive data set collected from long-term archaeological research, the study reconstructs past lifeways on these small tropical islands. The work presents a wide range of information, including types of fuel and construction timber used by inhabitants, cooking techniques for various shellfish, availability and use of medicinal and ritual plants, the effects on native plants and animals of cultivation and domestication, and diet and nutrition of native populations. The islands of the Caribbean basin continue to be actively excavated and studied in the quest to understand the earliest human inhabitants of the New World. This comprehensive work will ground current and future studies and will be valuable to archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists, ecologists, Caribbeanists, Latin American historians, and anyone studying similar island environments.

Native American Uses of Biological Resources in the West Indies

On Land and Sea

Elizabeth J. Reitz

Elizabeth Reitz

Zooarchaeology is a detailed reference manual for students and professional archaeologists interested in identifying and analysing animal remains from archaeological sites. Drawing on material from all over the world, and covering a time span from the Pleistocene to the nineteenth century AD, the emphasis is on animals whose remains inform us about many aspects of the relationships between humans and their natural and social environments, especially site formation processes, subsistence strategies, and paleoenvironments. The authors discuss suitable methods and theories for all vertebrate classes and molluscs, and include hypothetical examples to demonstrate these. There are extensive references and illustrations to help in the process of identification.

Zooarchaeology

This is an introductory text for students interested in identification and analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites. The emphasis is on animals whose remains inform us about the relationship between humans and their natural and social environments, especially site formation processes, subsistence strategies, the processes of domestication, and paleoenvironments. Examining examples from all over the world, from the Pleistocene period up to the present, this volume is organized in a way that is parallel to faunal study, beginning with background information, bias in a faunal assemblage, and basic zooarchaeological methods. This revised edition reflects developments in zooarchaeology during the past decade. It includes sections on enamel ultrastructure and incremental analysis, stable isotyopes and trace elements, ancient genetics and enzymes, environmental reconstruction, people as agents of environmental change, applications of zooarchaeology in animal conservation and heritage management, and a discussion of issues pertaining to the curation of archaeofaunal materials.

Elizabeth S. Wing

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