Zooarchaeology: Lecture

ANTH 2500 (“Zooarchaeology: Lecture”) is a conceptual introduction to the specialized analysis of animal bones recovered from archaeological sites and to how these remains can be used to build defensible claims about the past. In weekly lectures, students will be introduced to the principles of zooarchaeological analysis, the basic physiology of the vertebrate skeleton, theories of multispecies archaeology, and the particular roles played by animals in the colonial history of the New Mexico as an extended case study. Students enrolled in ANTH 2500 must also enroll in ANTH 2501 (“Zooarchaeology: Lab”), the latter of which offers complementary opportunities to work in the laboratory with zooarchaeological artifacts recovered during Barnard’s field program at the site of San Antonio del Embudo, NM. Lectures in ANTH 2500 will support this research not just by illuminating the analytical logics of zooarchaeology but also by providing a background to the specific human-animal ecologies of colonial New Mexico.