Paleonutrition

4. Issues in the Recovery of Paleonutritional Data

chapter 4 Issues in the Recovery of Paleonutritional Data there are a variety of methods used to recover archaeological materials important for paleonutritional analyses. These methods are dependent on the type of site that is being excavated, the types of matrix and strata from which the remains are recovered, and the kinds of research questions being asked. The most important step in the recovery of such materials is that the paleonutritionist be involved from the very beginning . The paleonutritionist should be a part of the research design and should help plan where excavations will take place and how excavations should proceed in order to assist in the recovery of the various materials that are necessary for paleonutritional assessments. During actual excavations , the paleonutritionist should be present to collect at least some of the samples and to observe depositional conditions and recovery. In this way, the paleonutritionist will be able to assess taphonomic factors and conditions as well as modify the basic plan of recovery if needed. The least innovative, but productive, way to recover biological materials is to have a technician collect random, unspecified samples from the field and send them in a bag to the paleonutritionist, along with a map of the field grid indicating where each sample was collected. The problem with this method is that the paleonutritionist has no indication of potential taphonomic factors, the kinds of cultural or environmental conditions that may have influenced deposition and preservation, whether samples were collected from unambiguous cultural features/horizons/ zones, whether the “best” samples were collected, or how the samples fit in with the entire site. If the paleonutritionist conducting the analyses had never been to the site during excavation and/or had not been a part of the excavation design and sample recovery, the analysis of the samples may become nothing more than technical identification with little or no interpretation. If paleonutritionists wish to contribute to the understanding of prehistory and the importance of biological material in the reconstruction of past lifeways, they should be involved in the actual recovery recovery of paleonutritional data 103 process at all stages. The major issues facing the paleonutritionist in the interpretation of materials collected from an archaeological site are a clear understanding of taphonomy, the identification of cultural versus noncultural materials, and a recognition of how recovery methods may have influenced what materials were recovered from a site. Taphonomy Taphonomy is the study of site formation processes as they affect the preservation, inclusion, and distribution of biological components from archaeological sites. Efremov (1940), a paleontologist, defined the term taphonomy (taphos [tomb] and logos [law]) as the study of the transition of animal remains from the biosphere to the lithosphere. Because the term was defined by a paleontologist, most taphonomic studies have focused on the recovery and analysis of bone remains, although the taphonomy of plant (and other) remains is just as important for archaeological interpretations . Since its inception, the definition of taphonomy has been altered to fit the needs of both paleontology and archaeology. Today, the study of taphonomy has evolved to include the postfossilization period (Lyman 1994a), and the scope of taphonomy now encompasses the history of biological remains, including their collection and curation (see Sobolik 2003). Because of the broad array of biological, environmental, and human agents affecting the preservation, inclusion, and distribution of biological remains in archaeological sites, taphonomy should be the first concern of all archaeologists and paleonutritionists before they even begin to recover these remains. Before walking onto a site, before screening for bones, before floating for seeds and charcoal, the archaeologist should be thinking about all the agents that could be responsible for the assemblage and that may have affected the archaeological site overall. In this chapter, we discuss why it is important for the paleonutritionist (and archaeologist) to be aware of taphonomic processes at every step of an investigation, particularly what types of taphonomic factors could be influencing their assemblages and how they might account for these factors in the overall analysis and interpretation. As Bunn (1991:438) observed, “Taphonomic studies of modern analogs have shown the complexity of the processes that affect bones; but rather than despair, we should recognize that the processes likely to 104 paleonutrition have operated at a particular archaeological site, and the likely range of variability in the patterned effects of those processes, are specifiable.” Some of the ways that archaeologists and paleonutritionists can help determine the...