Naomi Sykes - Beastly Questions: Animal Answers to Archaeological Issues

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Despite this books title, I dont actually have any answers. This volume is essentially a collection of my musing, and the interpretations and ideas that I present are just that: my interpretations and my ideas they are not to be trusted.

The only thing in this book that I genuinely believe is that the answers are out there, preserved in the animal bones and associated material culture of the archaeological record. When contextualized within wider interdisciplinary research, which to my mind is the only way forward, zooarchaeology has the potential to transform our understanding of the past, as well as the present and the future. Are (zoo)archaeologists up to the challenge? That is, perhaps, the biggest question. But I hope the answer is Yes!

I wrote this book partly because when, in 2010, I started teaching a new module called Beastly Questions, there was no single volume to which I could refer my students. Collectively, the class of 2010 and I took the decision to write the book that we wished we already had. For their assignments, the students undertook original research on any animal-related topics that interested them, be it dragons or wool. Since that seminal year, all the students that have taken the module have done likewise. Already some of these students are rising stars in the field of zooarchaeology (you know who you are) and so I have resisted the temptation to include their work in this volume (they will publish it themselves). However, each and every student, be they stars or slackers (again, you know who you are), helped to create the research dynamic that has made my job joyful for the last four years.

These wonderful individuals students turned colleagues must all be acknowledged. So, my thanks go to: Laura Amos, Stuart Ashby, Jessica Beaver, Jonny Bell, Charlotte Bell, Ben Billingsley, Laura Bishop, Katie Blyth, Sholto Bonham, Harriet Brown, Seraphina Brown, Jonny Bulcock, James Burrows, Nigel Byram, Hannah Chisholm, Ben Cockle, Alex Connock, Katie Cooper, Will Coren, Charlotte Cowderoy, Dan Crampsie, Kathryn Dally, Ben Davies, James Dearson, Sean Doherty, Adam Douthwaite, Ilaria Falqui, Liz Farebrother, Andrew Foster, Mark Fussey, Martina Gagin, Nick Gill, Josh Gottlieb, Jasmine Gray, Alix Green, Erin Green, Sam Hall, Alex Hamilton, Becky Hankinson, Hillery Harrison, Jimmy Harthill, Nat Hitchins, Poppy Hodkinson, Sara Holm, Jessica Hughes, Amanda Hurry, Chris Jones, Tomas Joseph, Zoe Knapp, Andy la Niece, Jamie Lee, James Longstaff, David Lucy, Elspeth McKellar, Amandeep Mahal, Lizzie Manchester, Harry Mansfield, Joel Markham, Luke Martin, Sasha Mclachlan, Ryan Moore, Robert Motamed, Chris Nacca, Tania Newman, Rebecca Nightingale, Max Ogden, Fran Patrick, Matt Platt, Rebekah Pool, Rachel Potter, Abi Price, Dale Prime, Sophie Pye, Marcus Rizzo, Duncan Robins, Declan Robinson, Conor Ryan, Kushboo Sagar, Thoman Sanville, Nicholas Scott, Catherine Shaw, Oliver Slattery, Ashley Stabenow, Charlie Syson, Sezin Tanner, James Taylor, Emma Teboul, Amy Tompson, Jake Thorton, Sarah Tilley, Marios Tjirkali, Hilary Tricker, Stuart Tyrer, Victoria Walker, Lee Walkington, Tara Wallace, Rachel Walsh, Hannah Ward, John Watson, Westy, Kate Whiston, Robert Wilford, Lucy Williams, Callum Wilson, Dan Wojcik, Luke Wollett, Annabell Zander, Yiheny Zhou.

Beyond the Beastly Questions students, there are other individuals whose generosity of ideas (Mark Pearce, who suggested that I teach the module in the first place) and data (Martyn Allen, Emir Filipovic, Henriette Kroll, Jim Morris, Kris Poole and Rebecca Reynolds) were vital for this volume. Others kindly provided images: Robin Bendrey, Will Bowden, John Fletcher, Chris Graham, Richard Jones, Joy McCorriston, Paul Morris, Terry OConnor, Jessica Pearson, Peter Popkin. My thanks go particularly to David Taylor, for drawing Figures 3.3a and 3.3b, and to Holly Miller for constructing Figure 1.7. Holly also kindly read and commented upon sections of the volume, as did Nina Crummy, Phillip Shaw and Terry OConnor (who courageously reviewed the whole thing): I may not have taken all your advice but I thank you for offering it.

The research in this book was supported by two AHRC grants: AH/I026456/1 and AH/L006979/1.

Zooarchaeology has begun to bore me. If I find myself reading, or for that matter writing, another animal bone report where the major conclusion is that an assemblage contained 64 per cent cattle and less than 1 per cent deer, suggesting that people ate a lot of beef but that hunting was not very important (choose any of my reports and a similar statement will be there somewhere) I may have to commit suicide, academically speaking. In fact, this book is probably a major step towards achieving my scholastic death wish, as it presents a very personal, and perhaps not widely held, view about the aims and potential of zooarchaeology: my feeling is that we can do better and may need to if the discipline is to remain viable and respected.

For me, zooarchaeology is the study of animals their remains, representations (artistic, linguistic or literary) and associated material culture to examine the most fundamental issues concerning past societies: how people behaved and how they thought. Traditionally, zooarchaeologists, including myself, have shied away from tackling these big questions, instead passing the task, along with quantities of economic and environmental data, over to the real archaeologists. I should, perhaps, not tar the whole zooarchaeological community based on my own shortcomings, as there are certainly many wonderful examples where zooarchaeologists have been at the forefront of archaeological research, asking cutting-edge questions about mainstream issues (e.g. Albarella and Serjeantson 2002; Arbuckle 2012; Barrett et al. 2004; Bartosiewicz 2003; Benecke 1994; Clavel 2001; MacKinnon 2004; OConnor 2001; Outram et al. 2009; Pluskowski et al. 2011; N. Russell 2002; Twiss 2012; Vigne 2011; Zeder 1991, 2005). However, my impression is that these insightful works are in the minority relative to the large amount of zooarchaeological research that is undertaken worldwide. The situation is brought into relief further by the fact that some of the most exciting animal-based studies have been produced by scholars who would not classify themselves as zooarchaeologists (e.g. Conneller 2004; Crummy 2013; Fletcher 2011; Gardiner 1997; Hamerow 2006; Jennbert 2011; Larson 2011; Whittle 2012). For this reason, because faunal-remains specialists often stop short of interpreting the data they work so hard to produce, zooarchaeology is widely considered to be a facile data-generating specialism that provides little information beyond what people ate. As a result, funding for zooarchaeology is cut, particularly within the commercial sector, fatally reducing the specialists ability to provide any interpretation beyond mere dietary and economic reconstruction.