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13 Faunal Research in the Yazoo Basin and Lower Mississippi Valley Setting Parameters for Future Research in the I-69 Corridor, Mississippi H. Edwin Jackson Introduction Recovery and analysis of faunal materials have become integral aspects of archaeological research designs, providing valuable information regarding subsistence practices, site seasonality, impacts of human exploitation on animal populations, changes in procurement strategies due to environmental change, changing human demographics, and the gradual shift from hunting and gathering to horticulture to intensive agriculture. In addition, zooarchaeological remains have the potential for providing insights into socially defined variability in resource access, and even symbolic aspects of prehistoric cultures. This chapter reviews and synthesizes available zooarchaeological data from the Mississippi Delta region and, more broadly, from the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV), to produce a baseline for anticipated data recovery as a result of mitigation efforts in the I-69 corridor in northeast Mississippi. Following a general discussion of environmental parameters affecting prehistoric procurement patterns, this chapter summarizes existing analyses of archaeologically recovered faunal collections from sites located in that portion of the LMV referred to as the Yazoo Basin (northwest Mississippi).It then augments these data with information from other sites excavated in adjacent states to examine and define broader temporal and spatial trends in prehistoric faunal use. This will help to better define current gaps in our understanding and thus guide further research. The Role of Zooarchaeology in Archaeological Research Archaeologically recovered faunal remains provide data for reconstructing the character of subsistence pursuits, including the species of animals used, the Faunal Research in the Yazoo Basin / 275 mix and relative contributions of these species, how procurement activities varied seasonally, and how they may have changed over time. Choices made by hunter-fishers in expending procurement efforts are conditioned by a matrix of variables. These include seasonal variability in prey condition and availability and ease of procurement, all of which affect relative procurement costs and thus the subsistence strategies employed. The prey available in a specific site locale also responded to longer-term patterns of biogeographic distributions , distributions affected by the dynamic alluvial valley environment that is the LMV. There were also the impacts of cultural practices such as farming on local plant and animal communities, conflicts with other necessary activities (for instance, crop harvesting), and the cultural rules that governed aspects of food sharing and consumption. Demographic characteristics of both local and regional human population also played a role in determining the range and relative contributions of resources used. For instance, increasing population density in a single locale may increase the range of resources used, since more people are hunting and collecting close to a settlement. Finally, social and political variables may play a role in subsistence pursuits. For instance, endemic intersocietal conflict may increase the risks of long-distance hunting, resulting in more localized pursuits (e.g., Keck 1997; see below). There are a number of challenges to making cultural sense of the zooarchaeological record. First, archaeological faunal assemblages are rarely a perfect representation of the range of hunting, trapping, and fishing activities of a people. The length and purpose (residential, short-term, task-specific) of an occupation play a role in what is discarded and how. Season of the year affects not only the animals exploited, but how they are prepared and what becomes of the inedible skeletal parts. The remains from a site may represent a narrowly focused procurement effort at a particular point in the annual round, or be longer-term accumulations representing multiple decisions and consequent hunting and fishing efforts. Animals may be introduced to a site whole or, if cleaning or butchering occurs away from the habitation site, only in part. Preparation methods and patterns of refuse disposal affect the chances of bones being buried in a way that allows recovery by the archaeologist. A host of post-depositional taphonomic processes affect the likelihood that discarded bone will be recovered archaeologically. For instance, village dogs, rodents , and soil conditions (acidity, matrix texture, moisture, and temperature) all affect bone preservation.All of these figure into the composition of the faunal assemblage recovered through excavation. However, decisions made about how a site is excavated also affect the composition of the sample and its potential for accurately representing prehistoric subsistence patterns. The size of the excavation sample, the distribution of that sample, and the contexts—midden versus feature, for instance—all affect bone recovery. Finally, the skills possessed and the methods employed by the analyst...

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