0006 - Placing Animals in the Neolithic Social Zooarchaeology of Prehistoric Farming Communities



This book presents a new perspective on the social milieu of the Early and Middle Neolithic in Central Europe as viewed through relations between humans and animals, food acquisition and consumption, as well as refuse disposal practices.

Based on animal bone assemblages from a wide range of sites from a period of over 2,000 years originating in both the North European Plain lowlands and the loess uplands, the evidence explored in the book represents the Linear Band Pottery Culture (LBK), the Lengyel Culture, and the Funnel Beaker Culture (TRB) allowing us to follow the dynamic development of early farmers from their emergence in the area north of the Carpathians up to their consolidation and stabilization in this new territory.

This title is sponsored by Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

"… the book is about ‘interpretive social zooarchaeology’, focusing on Central European early farming (Neolithic) communities. Marciniak adopts a taphonomic approach, as do a growing number of zooarchaeologists today, and looks at the ‘horizontal distribution of faunal remains’ — the latter being something which is undertaken less often than it is when considering other archaeological material such as stone tools. As such it is not a new approach, but it is a new attempt to combine approaches which are frequently considered separately…there is one thing which cannot be denied: it amply illustrates the complexity of the faunal record — a complexity which is often overlooked when dealing with the post- Pleistocene record. It shows that social as well as economic reconstruction may be possible, that faunal data can record something more than the environment and what was eaten. "

- Katie Boyle, Environmental Archaeology

"[This is] a bold and refreshing attempt by Arkadiusz Marciniak to re-energize and broaden studies of animals in the early and middle Neolithic of central Europe. I see much still to do as we try to come to grips with all aspects of keeping, managing, eating and thinking animals in the early to middle Neolithic, but this book is a significant contribution to that process. "

- Alasdair Whittle, Cardiff School of History and Archaeology

Fonte

Cláudia Costa