zoolog R package: Zooarchaeological analysis with log-ratios

Log Size Indexes (LSI) allow the increase of the number of data and have been used in a number of zooarchaeological studies since 1950. However, some standards to calculate the log ratios remain unpublished, the calculation of the indexes can be tedious, and it is further hindered by the diversity of data recording practices. The R package ‘zoolog’ enables calculation of thousands of log-ratios in seconds, with the advantage that the users can choose between different public references, which increases the repeatability and comparability of the results, allowing the smooth integration of references and databases with heterogeneous nomenclatures. Alternatively, the users may use their own references. This paper presents the main functionalities and procedures enabled by the package ‘zoolog’, together with some examples of use. A real dataset and several examples with R code are provided with the aim of facilitating osteometrical analyses in zooarchaeology.This work was developed as part of the ERC-Starting Grant ZooMWest (Grant agreement 716298)

Redefining the timing and circumstances of the chicken's introduction to Europe and north-west Africa

Little is known about the early history of the chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), including the timing and circumstances of its introduction into new cultural environments. To evaluate its spatio-temporal spread across Eurasia and north-west Africa, the authors radiocarbon dated 23 chicken bones from presumed early contexts. Three-quarters returned dates later than those suggested by stratigraphy, indicating the importance of direct dating. The results indicate that chickens did not arrive in Europe until the first millennium BC. Moreover, a consistent time-lag between the introduction of chickens and their consumption by humans suggests that these animals were initially regarded as exotica and only several centuries later recognised as a source of ‘food’

Towards an agroecology of the Roman expansion: Republican agriculture and animal husbandry in context -- Supplemental Tables: Supplemental tables with zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical data

Supplemental tables to Trentacoste, A. and Lodwick, L. (2023) Towards an agroecology of the Roman expansion: Republican agriculture and animal husbandry in context. In S. Bernard, L. Mignone and D. Padilla Peralta (eds), Making the Middle Republic: New Approaches to Rome and Italy, 400-200 BCE. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. The above chapter argues for the importance of farming regimes as a force that shaped Roman social and economic history, and it provides a first step towards an agroecology of the Roman expansion. It presents a new synthesis of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from first-millennium BC Italy integrated with wider evidence for agricultural processing and rural production. Results indicate that production was motivated more by regional trajectories than by Roman political annexation, and that rural settlement changes did not have a major immediate impact on the bioarchaeological data considered. The paper discusses the socio-economic implications of these conclusions. Lastly, the chapter highlights key points of change alongside pathways for future research. The data analysed in the paper are contained in the attached supplemental tables, which summarise archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data collected from published sources. Bibliographic details are included in the supplements. SuppTable01_Archbot: Supplemental Table 1, Archaeobotanical remains - presence/absence of archaeobotanical remains by site. Tenth century BC to first century AD. SuppTable02_Zooarch: Supplemental Table 2, Zooarchaeological remains - relative percentages of cattle, sheep/goat, and pigs by site. Quantified using NISP (Number of identified specimens). Middle Bronze Age to first century AD. This data is published open access to facilitate re-use. Please cite the chapter and the dataset if you use this data

Animal remains from Forcello [Aggregated Media Files (1) from Open Context]

<p>This archives media files associated with the <em><a href="http://opencontext.org/projects/bdc6cb19-e739-404b-8b4f-eeeaae3b8aae">Animal remains from Forcello</a></em> project published by <a href="http://opencontext.org">Open Context</a>.</p><p>The included JSON file "zenodo-oc-files.json" describes links between the various files in this archival deposit and their associated Open Context media resources (identified by URI). These linked Open Context media resource items provide additional context and descriptive metadata for the files archived here.</p><br><p><strong>Brief Description of this Project</strong><br>Animal remains from the Etruscan settlement at Forcello (MN). Excludes fish and molluscs</p

Sampling for animal mobility at a large scale: methods, challenges and possibilities

25th EAA Annual Meeting (Bern, 2019) - Abstract Book. ISBN: 978-80-907270-6-9. European Association of Archaeologists, 2019The study of animal mobility in archaeology has experienced a huge development in the last few years following the generalisation of chemical analyses (e.g. ancient DNA and isotopic studies, namely on oxygen, strontium and sulphur isotopes). These techniques open new perspectives to analyse sourcing areas, mobility patterns and changes through time, but also present some challenges due to their financial costs and destructive nature. The present contribution will provide a discussion of the sampling strategy developed in the frame of the ERC project ‘ZooMWest-Zooarchaeology and Mobility in the Western Mediterranean: from the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity’. The project is focused on animal mobility, and both ancient DNA and strontium and oxygen isotopic studies are developed at a large chronological and spatial scale. Questions to be tackled will include the best strategies to detect translocation and regular trade, as well as to detect regular seasonal movements. The discussion will include some of the results obtained, which suggest different mobility patterns depending on the species and the time frame considered.Peer reviewe

Pre-Roman improvements to agricultural production: Evidence from livestock husbandry in late prehistoric Italy.

Domestication of wild cattle, sheep, and pigs began a process of body size diminution. In most of Western Europe this process continued across prehistory and was not reversed until the Roman period. However, in Italy, an increase in livestock body size occurred during the Iron Age, earlier than the Western provinces. In order to better understand the nature and timing of this early increase in animal size, this paper presents a detailed regional study of taxonomic abundance and biometric data from zooarchaeological assemblages recovered from the Po and Venetian-Friulian Plains in northern Italy. Our results demonstrate a high level of regionality in the choice of species exploited, with husbandry systems focused on different domesticates, as well as regional differences in animal size. However, despite significant variation in species frequencies, settlement structure, and epigraphic tradition, all areas with sufficient data demonstrate similar significant changes in livestock body size. Cattle and sheep increased incrementally in size prior to the Roman conquest in all regions considered; surprisingly, pigs continued to decrease in size throughout later prehistory. The incremental pace and pan-regional character of the size change in cattle and sheep suggests an internally motivated phenomenon rather than herd replacement with a new larger population, as might follow colonisation or conquest. The divergence in size trends for bovids and suids suggests a noteworthy change in cattle and sheep herding practices during the Iron Age or final centuries of the Bronze Age, in contrast with greater continuity in pig management. Our analysis provides a thorough zooarchaeological synthesis for northern Italy and, for the first time, demonstrates that both cattle and sheep increased in size outside of Roman territory well before the conquest of this area. This study offers a basis for future chemical analyses (DNA, isotopes), which will further investigate the cause(s) of livestock size changes in northern Italy