Introduction
Due to their variable but generally high inorganic content, shells of the phylum Mollusca constitute one of the most durable categories of biogenic finds in the global archaeological record. Mollusc shells are omnipresent and often highly visible in the archaeological contexts across the globe, with the rare exception of wet-preserved contents of acidic bog contexts. The nature and quantity of archaeological mollusc shells vary tremendously among sites, chronological periods, and geographic areas, from 125 ka BP sites associated with early modern humans in eastern Africa (Stinger 2000) to elaborate ornaments from Pre-Columbian Colombia (Carvajal-Contreras 2011). Depending on the geographic area and research question, investigations may focus on molluscs of terrestrial, freshwater, or marine origin, and they may focus on molluscs that were exploited as food resource or as raw material in artifact manufacture. Because mollusc shells archive changes in their ambient...
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Çakırlar, C. (2014). Molluscs (Invertebrates): Analyses in Environmental Archaeology. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_899
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