5.1 Osteology and Zooarchaeology

This lesson introduces both osteology and zooarchaeologyThe study of animal remains from archaeological sites to understand past human-animal interactions, diet, and environment.. These are broad disciplines within archaeology that collaborate with, incorporate, and influence, and collaborate with other branches of archaeology.

Osteology and Zooarchaeology

Human osteology is concerned with investigating the physical remains of individuals in the past. These may be victims of the black death found in a cemetery, or neanderthals living 45,000 years ago, or even first world war soldiers, the unifying factor is that we have physical skeletal remains that can be investigated. Zooarchaeology is similarly interested in physical remains, but of animals rather than humans. The disciplines are distinct but closely connected, and are almost always taught separately to one another in universities. For the sake of this lesson, however, we will be focusing on a branch of particularly unifying and similar methods used - direct skeletal analysis to provide MNI and osteo profiles.