Dung in the dumps: what we can learn from multi-proxy studies of archaeological dung pellets
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Dung in the dumps: what we can learn from multi‑proxy studies of archaeological dung pellets Daniel Fuks1,2 · Zachary C. Dunseth3 Received: 30 November 2019 / Accepted: 14 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract A key question in archaeobotany concerns the role of herbivore dung in contributing plant remains to archaeobotanical assemblages. This issue has been discussed for at least 40 years and has motivated several archaeobotanical studies on identifying dung-derived deposition of plant remains. Meanwhile, microarchaeological methods have developed and continue to be developed for detecting dung in archaeological sediments, and multi-proxy methodologies are being used to study the botanical components of dung-associated sediments. Combining these approaches, the authors recently led a study incorporating different botanical proxies (seeds, pollen, phytoliths) with geoarchaeological sedimentary analysis to compare dung pellets and associated sediments. This approach presents a new way to gauge the contribution of dung-derived plant remains in archaeobotanical assemblages, which is further explored in this follow-up paper. The present paper further highlights how multi-proxy archaeobotanical investigation of individual dung pellets can provide information on seasonality, grazing range and herding practices. Their short production and deposition time make herbivore dung pellets time capsules of agropastoral activity, a useful spatio-temporal unit of analysis, and even a type of archaeological context in their own right. Adding different biomolecular and chemical methods to future multi-proxy archaeobotanical investigation of herbivore dung will produce invaluable high-resolution reconstructions of dung microbiomes. Ultimately, unpacking the contents of ancient dung pellets will inform on the species, physical characteristics, diet, niche, and disease agents of the ancient pellets’ producers. Expanded datasets of such dung-derived information will contribute significantly to the study of ecosystem transformation as well as the long-term development of agriculture and pastoralism. Keywords Archaeobotany · Palaeoethnobotany · Geoarchaeology · Archaeological dung · Coprolites · Multi-proxy study
Introduction Communicated by G. Fiorentino. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00806-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Daniel Fuks [email protected] * Zachary C. Dunseth [email protected] 1
Archaeobotany Lab, Martin (Szusz) Land of Israel and Archaeology Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat‑Gan 5290002, Israel
2
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing St, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK
3
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University, 60 George St, Providence, RI 02912, USA
Considering the centrality of livestock to agricultural and pastoral societies, there is still much to learn
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