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Sclerochronological analysis of archaeological mollusc assemblages: methods, applications and future prospects

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Abstract

Accreting skeletal tissues found in bone, teeth, otoliths and molluscan shell act as sensitive recorders of local environmental and climatic conditions. Owing to their robust nature, ubiquity and abundance in the archaeological record as well as the potential for high-resolution data acquisition, the accreting skeletal tissues of archaeological molluscs are increasingly employed as palaeoenvironmental proxies. Researchers have chiefly utilised such proxies to extend instrumental records of environmental conditions through palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and explore the impact of environmental and climatic change on human populations. However, the use of environmental proxies from the archaeological record can be hampered by a number of methodological challenges including inadequate sampling strategies, appropriate calibration, the use of inappropriate proxies and the broad extrapolation of localised results. This paper reviews the use of molluscan shell from archaeological contexts as palaeoenvironmental proxies. We focus on the application of sclerochronology—a suite of high-resolution physical and geochemical data recovery methods widely used in conjunction with molluscan shell. This paper presents an overview of the potential of these techniques in approaching more nuanced understandings of human-environment interactions and how they can be more successfully incorporated into archaeological research.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP120103179) and James Cook University Collaboration across Boundaries grant scheme. Sean Ulm is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT120100656). We acknowledge Kaiadilt traditional owners of the South Wellesley Islands, as partners in aspects of the research presented here. The Kaiadilt Aboriginal Corporation collaborated in establishing the research framework for this project. We thank Costijn Zwart, Jon Nott, Leah Aspinall, Matthew Harris and Lydia Mackenzie for the continuous support, discussions and advice they provided.

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  1. College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, QLD, 4870, Australia

    Robin W. Twaddle & Sean Ulm

  2. School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Jane Hinton

  3. College of Science, Technology and Engineering, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, QLD, 4870, Australia

    Christopher M. Wurster & Michael I. Bird

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  1. Robin W. Twaddle
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Correspondence to Robin W. Twaddle.

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Twaddle, R.W., Ulm, S., Hinton, J. et al. Sclerochronological analysis of archaeological mollusc assemblages: methods, applications and future prospects. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 8, 359–379 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-015-0228-5

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