Assessing Animal Management Within An Urban/Rural Continuum

About This Grant

The goal of this research project is to gain insight into the growth and decline of cities through the examination of animal management and distribution within urban areas. There are a variety of definitions for urban centers and cities, and each emphasizes different factors such as geography, economics, demographics, and/or social aspects. However, these approaches do not consider that cycles of urbanism exist as cities grow or diminish in size and complexity and so change in form, function, or status over time. This research examines the changing nature of cities through archaeology, a discipline that is particularly well placed to provide relevant insight because it can trace changes over extended periods of time. The emergence of one set of Iron Age sites provides an excellent opportunity to study the fluidity of urbanism and the emergence of internal growth, shifting populations, and new political systems. All these factors impact the size and character of settlements. This study will extract and analyze stable isotope data. Stable isotope data is based on chemical variations in the chemical element (same number of protons but different number of neutrons). The stable isotope data is analyzed with mathematical models that rely on the use of artificial intelligence. Moreover, stable isotope data and methods relate to biotechnology as they assess data from non-radioactive element to examine and identify biological processes (e.g. food chains, migration, site of origin). This research builds a detailed picture of animal management systems during the phases of the Iron Age at four “urban” sites. These sites provide large, well-dated faunal assemblages from well-documented sites within a regional context. Researchers analyze archaeological domestic animal remains using both zooarchaeology and archaeological science. Zooarchaeology, the study of animal remains, determines species preferences, changes in the age and/or sex composition of herds and/or increased culling of select ages or species, as well as changes in butchery pattern and intensity and modifications. The differences in relative frequency of animal species demonstrate the differing preferences of animal husbandry and use practices at those sites, potentially related to different production strategies and levels of urbanization. Analyses (carbon, oxygen, and strontium) to characterize the diet of individual animals, management strategies (including birth and cull seasons, the contribution of grazing/browsing/foddering and water management) as well as animal mobility are also conducted. The research provides a robust understanding of human-animal interactions at this time as well as further information on the larger themes of foodways and trade which have not been fully explored for this period. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.