The animal body-part utility indices developed by Lewis Binford have been used to interpret faunal assemblages ranging from Plio-Pleistocene sites in East Africa to a late prehistoric bison kill in the High Plains of North America. Little attention, however, has been placed on refining or further developing these scales of economic utility. We examine Binford's derivation of the modified general utility index (MGUI) and demonstrate that it is needlessly complex. A nearly identical index, the food utility index (FUI), is presented. It simply scales variation in the amount of meat, marrow, and bone grease associated with different caribou body parts. We then use the insights provided by this simple scale to explore relations among economic utility, differential body-part representation, and human decision making.

A Reconsideration of Animal Body-Part Utility Indices

Terrestrial Vertebrate Accumulations

Stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in bone have become increasingly frequent inclusions in archaeological reports over the past few decades. The majority of such studies has been done in North America, where the use of marine foods and the introduction of maize have been monitored. Similar questions have been addressed in Mesoamerica and South America. In Europe, stable isotope ratios have documented the shift from marine fishing and gathering to agriculture in coastal areas and the introduction of millet in parts of eastern and southern Europe. Much work remains to be done in Asia, where millet replaced early C3 plant foods and, in turn, was replaced by rice. In Africa marine adaptations, freshwater fishing, agriculture, and pastoralism all yield diagnostic isotopic signatures. We review these studies, discuss areas requiring further study, and close with discussions of areas promising interesting future developments.

/pdf/bone-stable-isotope-studies-in-archaeology-4yvb53wzym.pdf

Bone stable isotope studies in archaeology

Publisher Summary
This chapter reviews the two major goals of butchery analysis within an historic context of several decades ago. It focuses on analytic techniques that have been and are being used to identify the hominid taphonomic agent in butchery analyses. It presents a brief description of how butchering patterns are infer. It also presents an explicitly taphonomic approach to the analysis of butchery in an attempt to integrate analytical techniques and goals into a coherent whole. The chapter also presents an example of butchery analysis that illustrates the explicitly taphonomic approach. It also explores the more recent attempts aimed specifically at identifying the taphonomic agents involved in faunal processing.

5 – Archaeofaunas and Butchery Studies: A Taphonomic Perspective

Measuring the post-depositional destruction of bone in archaeological assemblages

Bison kills and bone counts: By John D. Speth. 1983. 227 pp., 60 figures, 32 tables. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. £16.00

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Bison kills and bone counts: By John D. Speth. 1983. 227 pp., 60 figures, 32 tables. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. £16.00