Conservation Biology and Applied Zooarchaeology

Preface

vii PrEFACE i have wanted to compile and edit a book on applied zooarchaeology for several years, and in 2010 the time was ripe. Charles randklev and i decided to organize a conference session on applied zooarchaeology, and we chose the Society of Ethnobiology conference as a venue. A growing frustration that i share with several chapter authors is that applied zooarchaeologists seem to increasingly preach to the choir about the merits of deep temporal data in environmental management, and despite a few calls from ecologists, very little attention has been paid to our work in conservation science. An obvious exception is the conservation agenda to “rewild” north America with species analogous to those that became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, which i find to be a troubling example of applied zooarchaeology. A session at the Society of Ethnobiology was a step toward ecology, but it hardly represents a full journey into conservation science, ecology, and environmental management. Charles and i asked lee lyman to serve as discussant for that session, and he later joined me as coeditor of this volume. We agree that applied zooarchaeology has been limited by the reluctance of its practitioners to present and publish in venues that appeal to conservation biologists and ecologists. However, through the process of editing this volume it has become transparent that applied zooarchaeologists face a host of other problems. First, the examples of deep temporal research we provide are often not contextualized very well in conservation science. that is, we rarely explicate the management implications of our research, overlooking that what is of obvious merit to the applied zooarchaeologist may not be so to other conservation scientists. Second, and more important, are the barriers to conservation in general characterized under the realm of political ecology. All conservation actions occur in economic, social, and political contexts. one would think that archaeologists trained as anthropologists would easily recognize this fact, but we tend to be idealistic about the deep temporal perspectives we offer to conservation. A final problem we face, one that is tough to acknowledge and that does not receive much attention, is viii Preface that archaeologists are often characterized as pseudoscientists by members of other scientific disciplines. that is, the results of our research are not often taken seriously. in this book, we try to overcome these barriers. Within the volume are chapters that touch on issues of political and social ecology, and a host of case studies for which management implications of zooarchaeological research are clearly stated. Adding a deep temporal perspective to conservation science (here in terms of animal ecology) is not a silver bullet. However, as lee lyman has said to me many times, “in light of the current environmental crisis can humans really afford to ignore any source of relevant data?” lee challenged us in his classic 1996 article published in World Archaeology to integrate zooarchaeology into environmental management. For several years now, zooarchaeologists have tried to do so. this book is a product of those efforts. Steve Wolverton, University of North Texas Conservation Biology and Applied Zooarchaeology ...