The Wisdom of Ancient Bones: The Archaeo-Zoological Research
By Guy Bar-Oz, Lior Weisbrod and Roee Shafir
(Hecht Museum, 2015), 52 pp., 41 color illustrations, $15.00 (paperback)
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What did ancient peoples eat? How did they prepare their food? Did they have pets?
Animal remains found at archaeological excavations can help answer these questions, among others. They provide a window into the lives of ancient peoples—their diet, economy and even religion and ritual. They help us reconstruct ancient landscapes and climates. They show us how ancient groups—and animals—adapted to their surroundings.
Archaeozoology (or zooarchaeology), a subfield of archaeology, studies animal remains at archaeological sites in order to understand better the relationship between humans and animals in antiquity. This complex relationship is explored in The Wisdom of Ancient Bones—The Archaeo-Zoological Research, a concise, nicely illustrated catalog of the exhibit after which it is named, curated by the Hecht Museum and the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa.
The catalog highlights the importance of animal remains at sites and explores the symbiotic relationship between humans and the animal world by looking at how ancient societies used and understood the presence of animals. The exhibit and catalog feature the remains of many different types of animals, including sheep, goats, lions, leopards, deer, rodents, insects, mollusks, reptiles, fish, birds, equids, dogs and cattle. In addition to these remains, artifacts made of animal bone and animal figures are analyzed to tell us more than what bones alone could.
What did ancient peoples eat? How did they prepare their food? Did they have pets?
Animal remains found at archaeological excavations can help answer these questions, among others. They provide a window into the lives of ancient peoples—their diet, economy and even religion and ritual. They help us reconstruct ancient landscapes and climates. They show us how ancient groups—and animals—adapted to their surroundings.
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