Of Buffalo and Butchers: Coupling Traditional Procurement Studies with Taphonomic Analyses to Explore Intensive Wild Animal Processing Patterns at Two Early Iron Age Sites in the Kruger National Park

Abstract

Located in northeastern South Africa in the Kruger National Park, the wilddominated faunal assemblages at Le6 and Le7 allow for a site-level examination of the treatment of wild species within the highly variable spectra of Early Iron Age animal use. Looking at hunting beyond pure subsistence choices, this paper couples traditional morphological analysis with taphonomic analysis and theoretical frameworks of intensification to ask new socially focussed zooarchaeological questions of these assemblages. Through this, both the procurement and processing methods utilized at Le6 and Le7 are identified and the significance of these choices is discussed. In so doing, the paper addresses possible specialization in both the hunting and the processing of large wild mammals. The socio-economic implications and potential drivers of these faunal choices are then considered within the broader context of the southern African Early Iron Age, and a potentially new faunal use strategy and site type are 1,*

Distinguishing African bovids using Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS): New peptide markers and insights into Iron Age economies in Zambia

“…Additionally, the exact trajectories of the expansion of herding throughout Africa are still poorly understood, as are the mechanisms by which herding took hold in different parts of the continent, i.e., whether through demographic migration or local adoption [25,96]. Furthermore, herding was not adopted wholesale as it spread across the continent: clear archaeological evidence for the long-term persistence of foragers exists [58], and many food-producing populations also continued to rely on terrestrial wild taxa, as seen in Pastoral Neolithic [11,97], as well as Iron Age sites in eastern and southern Africa [98][99][100][101]. In West Africa, recent studies highlight the range of wild bovid species exploited by humans until relatively recently, reflecting wild species' roles in elite foodways, as seen in 17 th and 18 th century Dahomean palace sites [37] and revealed through investigation of the trans-Saharan trade in 11 th to 14 th century Senegal [102].…”

New Directions in South African Archaeozoology of the Last 2,000 Years

“…Communication between specialists and archaeologists-in print-is a step towards raising awareness of the methodological issues that underpin our interpretations (e.g., Bousman et al 2016;Horsburgh and Moreno-Mayar 2015;Scott and Plug 2016). In this regard, confirming key taxonomic specimens through complementary analyses (Coutu et al 2016;Horsburgh et al 2016) and combining multiple lines of evidence (Antonites et al 2016;Coutu et al 2016;Grody 2016; see also Steele 2015) will go a long way to strengthen archaeozoological arguments.…”

“…Given the growing local demand and following global trends, this issue includes articles that approach archaeofauna from diverse analytical angles: ZooMS and isotopes (Coutu et al 2016), aDNA (Horsburgh et al 2016), use-traces (Antonites et al 2016), taphonomy (Grody 2016) and large-scale meta-analysis (Dusseldorp 2016). These methods hold tremendous interpretive advantages, yet their complications and limitations should also be acknowledged, a point which all of the authors discuss.…”

“…These methods hold tremendous interpretive advantages, yet their complications and limitations should also be acknowledged, a point which all of the authors discuss. Quantitative synthesis of available faunal datasets (Dusseldorp 2016) as well as revisiting Bold^collections from new theoretical and methodological angles (Antonites et al 2016;Ashley et al 2016;Grody 2016) will become common archaeozoological practice and serve as a reminder to present data and curate collections in ways that will enable future study (see e.g., Arbuckle et al 2014;Atici et al 2013;Jones and Gabe 2015). L i n k e d t o s t a n d a r d i s e d a n d a c c e s s i b l e archaeozoological data is the issue of methodological transparency, and the critical evaluation of data quality (Gobalet 2001;O'Connor 1996;Wolverton 2013).…”

“…Topics addressed include craft production and use of worked bone at K2 and Mapungubwe (Antonites et al 2016), earliest evidence for the ivory trade in southern Africa (Coutu et al 2016), intensive procurement and processing of wild animals by Early Iron Age agro-pastoralists (Grody 2016), importance of livestock in Later Stone Age hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies (Dusseldorp 2016) and, from a methodological perspective, evaluating the methods used in taxonomic identification (Horsburgh et al 2016). And, although none of the contributions to this issue specifically relate to the Late Iron Age/historical period, or involve other southern African countries, the questions and methods discussed also apply to these periods and areas.…”