The study of faunal remains from archaeological sites is often complicated by the presence of large numbers of highly fragmented, morphologically unidentifiable bones. In Australia, this is the combined result of harsh preservation conditions and frequent scavenging by marsupial carnivores. The collagen fingerprinting method known as zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) offers a means to address these challenges and improve identification rates of fragmented bones. Here, we present novel ZooMS peptide markers for 24 extant marsupial and monotreme species that allow for genus-level distinctions between these species. We demonstrate the utility of these new peptide markers by using them to taxonomically identify bone fragments from a nineteenth-century colonial-era pearlshell fishery at Bandicoot Bay, Barrow Island. The suite of peptide biomarkers presented in this study, which focus on a range of ecologically and culturally important species, have the potential to significantly amplify the zooarchaeological and paleontological record of Australia.

The Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Pleistocene locality Sch€ oningen has been a focus of archaeological research for over two decades. The locality is best-known for the discovery of wooden spears in close association with numerous butchered remains of horses and other large mammals in the Spear Horizon (Sch€ o 13II-4), with an age of ca. 300 kyr. Several site formation models have been proposed to explain the faunal accumulation at the site: 1) single hunting event on a dried lake shore; 2) multiple hunting events in the soft mud of a lake shore; 3) deposition on an exposed delta plain; 4) geogenic displacement by hydrological processes; 5) hominin waste disposal and storage behaviour; and 6) hominin butchering activities on a frozen lake surface. Visual spatial analyses allow for the (subjective) incorporation of archaeological knowledge in the interpretation of spatial data, while spatial statistics allow for more objective and reproducible inferences about spatial patterns. The combination of the two could thus provide a vital tool in disentangling complex site formation processes. This study uses a combination of visual spatial analyses, spatial statistics and orientation analyses in order to further disentangle the site formation history of Sch€ o 13II-4 and to assess the impact of post-depositional processes on the faunal assemblage. This study revealed the existence of intra-site and inter-species differences in spatial distribution and orientation. The results of this study are compared to the suggested site formation models for Sch€ o 13II-4 to test which of these models is most parsimonious with the spatial distribution and orientation of the faunal assemblage. It is concluded that the previously proposed site formation models are overly simplified and cannot be used to explain the site formation history of Sch€ o 13II-4.

The origins and dispersal of the chicken across the ancient world remains one of the most enigmatic questions regarding Eurasian domesticated animals1,2. The lack of agreement regarding the timing and center of origin is due, in large part, to issues with morphological identifications, a lack of direct dating, and poor preservation of thin bird bones. Historical sources attest to the prominence of chickens in southern Europe and southwest Asia by the last centuries BC3. Likewise, art historical depictions of chickens and anthropomorphic rooster-human chimeras are reoccurring motifs in Central Asian prehistoric and historic traditions4-6. However, when this ritually and economically significant bird spread along the trans-Eurasian exchange routes has remained a mystery. Here we show that chickens were widely raised by people at villages across southern Central Asia from the third century BC through medieval periods for their eggs and likely also meat. In this study, we present archaeological and molecular evidence for the cultivation of chickens for egg production from 12 different Central Asian archaeological sites spanning a millennium and a half. These eggshells were recovered in high abundance at all of these sites, suggesting that chickens were widely raised by people at villages across southern Central Asia from the third century BC through medieval periods and that they were an important part of the overall diet. Contrary to views that ancient peoples of Central Asia were primarily herding sheep, goat, and cattle, these data show that chicken was also important in the subsistence economy and that it was widely spread along the ancient Silk Road.

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