Food for thought: using game cameras to better understand the movement of bones by scavenging in archaeological faunal a
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Food for thought: using game cameras to better understand the movement of bones by scavenging in archaeological faunal assemblages Melanie A. Fillios 1
Received: 16 February 2015 / Accepted: 17 July 2015 / Published online: 1 August 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015
Abstract This paper questions our understanding of the movement of bones by animal scavengers in the archaeological record. Since assumptions regarding the effects of animal scavenging shape final interpretations of skeletal element frequencies in archaeological faunal assemblages, they are important for our understanding and reconstruction of ancient human behaviour. The results of a 4-year actualistic kangaroo scavenging study from Australia are used to question our understanding of the movement of the bone by contrasting visual data captured by motion-activated digital game cameras with traditional taphonomic studies using skeletal element frequencies. Game cameras are commonly used by ecologists to capture the behaviour of living species but have not yet been used in experimental archaeology where visually documenting animal scavenging behaviour can be used to understand the movement of carcasses and individual bones. Results suggest that traditional zooarchaeological analyses may not be accurate indicators of hunted versus scavenged prey in archaeological faunal assemblages. Moreover, they most certainly fail to document the entire suite of animals scavenging a carcass. These implications are discussed with particular reference to the ability to definitively ascertain the role of humans in the megafaunal extinction debate in Australia. Keywords Taphonomy . Faunal analysis . Scavenging . Australia . Actualistic studies . Archaeology
* Melanie A. Fillios [email protected] 1
School of Humanities, University of New England, Armidale 2351, New South Wales, Australia
Introduction Scavenging often plays a significant role in the taphonomy of faunal assemblages, frequently deleting and dispersing material before its incorporation into the archaeological record. However, peri- and post-mortem scavenging of animal carcasses may not always be recognizable in the archaeological record. The potential ‘invisibility’ of scavenging can affect the ability to discern between natural and anthropogenic agents of accumulation. This invisibility may also pose problems discerning whether humans hunted or scavenged carcasses—a key issue in the interpretation of past human subsistence behaviours in many archaeological sites across time and space. The movement of bone has direct bearing on recovered skeletal elements, and skeletal element profiles generated from these frequencies in turn are viewed as indicators of the actors/ accumulators of a faunal assemblage. The interplay between the movement of bone and the bone accumulators has direct implications for several ‘big picture’ questions in prehistory, such as human overkill versus climate change as a cause of species extinctions, or radical changes in human behaviour and subsist
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