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An Introduction to Zooarchaeology pp 503–529Cite as

New Ecological Directions: Isotopes, Genetics, Historical Ecology, Conservation

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Abstract

Chapter 23 reviews a selection of ecologically related areas in which zooarchaeologists have increasingly participated. Zooarchaeological analysis is enriched, rather than supplanted, by stable isotopic analysis of human and animal bones and teeth and analyses of modern and ancient animal DNA . This chapter outlines commonly used stable isotopes and their elucidation of migration, biogeographic change, and ecological relations in archaeological cases. Genomics has clarified domestication of various species while creating more complex narratives of human and animal interaction and movement, as examples in this chapter attest. While as yet on a more modest scale, analysis of aDNA from archaeofaunas offers a significant contribution to wild animal population history. Conservation biologists have recognized that archaeofaunas can testify to species biogeography and regional habitats for long before historic documentation. This chapter outlines complexities of defining baselines for habitat restoration and of communicating with another research community, conservation biologists. As examples here show, aspiring applied zooarchaeologists need good communication skills to discover what conservation biologists want to know, within the “political ecology ” of their own work lives, and to translate esoteric zooarchaeological knowledge into information useful to them.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Diane Gifford-Gonzalez

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  1. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez
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Gifford-Gonzalez, D. (2018). New Ecological Directions: Isotopes, Genetics, Historical Ecology, Conservation. In: An Introduction to Zooarchaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65682-3_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65682-3_23

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65680-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65682-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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