Session organizers
Marie Balasse & Élise DufouR
UMR 7209 CNRS “Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques et Environnements” Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Dept. Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité, Case postale 56, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France. balasse@mnhn.fr; edufour@mnhn.fr
Biogeochemical studies of animal remains are now currently applied to archaeological assemblages. Further methodological developments are obviously still expected, but the field has acquired a scientific maturity allowing a real integration into zooarchaeological studies, where biogeochemical analyses do not compete but truly complete the osteological and malacological analyses. This session includes accomplished zooarchaeological studies, highlighting how isotopic and trace element analyses can shed new lights on archaeological problematics or address questions that could not currently be addressed in any other way. The themes addressed by 18 oral and 13 poster presentations explore the relationship between man and domestic or wild animals in terrestrial and marine ecosystems from a geographical area extending from Japan to Arizona, and from the Bering Strait to Argentina, with no restriction in the time period. The session also highlights the diversity of the methodologies, recovering information from bone, tooth enamel and dentine, marine shell and land snails.