Archaeometry meets archaeozoology: Viking Haithabu and medieval Schleswig reconsidered

The two archaeofaunal assemblages from Haithabu (Viking period) and Schleswig (early Middle Age) belong to the largest such bone complexes ever recovered in Northern Europe. More than 800,000 animal bones were recovered from both sites in the course of the last three decades and investigated by traditional archaeozoological methods. More recently and independently from the latter, stable isotopic ratios of the light elements carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen were analyzed on a total of 440 animal bone finds representing 67 vertebrate species from both sites producing a data set comprising 1,760 individual isotopic ratios. In addition, stable strontium isotopic ratios were obtained from 68 animal teeth and bones of four species. In this paper, an attempt is made to synthesize archaeozoological and archaeometrical data on a larger scale. By becoming familiar with the specific potential of each method, we raise questions concerning not only palaeobiodiversity and palaeoecology of fish and birds in the area, trophic webs, and prey/predator relationships, but also human meat-provisioning, import of animals and animal products, and the reconstruction of hunting areas. This transdisciplinary approach led to an improvement in the quality of our interpretations and the validation of previously confirmed and/or rejected assumptions. It is still too early to expect answers to all these questions, but we are convinced that, in attempting to do so, the potential of coordinating such methods for future research will become evident, and we therefore strongly recommend an intensification of archaeometric analyses of archaeofaunal assemblages.     

Archaeology, Development and Conflict: A Case Study from the African Continent

Apart from wars, other contexts of social conflict have recently become a setting in which archaeologists are faced with acute, sometimes armed, violence. On the African continent, a region often overlooked in discussions of “archaeology in conflict”, rapid economic development has led to several such scenes. The paper discusses a particularly poignant example from the Middle Nile valley in Sudan, where large dam projects have been met with various levels of opposition by affected populations. Local communities opposing the construction of further planned dams on the Nile are increasingly stressing ‘cultural survival’ and fear of ‘developmental genocide’ as two of their major motivations for fighting these projects. Assuming a close link between the developer and archaeological salvage missions, affected people have started to use the expulsion of salvage teams from their territory as a strategy of resistance—posing an ethical dilemma for the archaeologists who struggle to find a position in the increasingly violent controversies accompanying these contested development projects.     

The use of dental crown heights for constructing age profiles of red deer and similar species in archaeological samples

The analysis of dental crown heights in a sample of known-age American Red deer (known in America as “elk”) has permitted the derivation of formulae for the prediction of age from crown height. The ages predicted from crown heights closely approximate true ages, when both predicted and true ages are grouped into broad, but still useful age classes. At least for the Red deer or “elk” dP₄, M₂ and M₃, age prediction formulae very similar to the empirically derived ones may be constructed by making certain hypothetical assumptions about the nature and rate of crown attrition. This suggests that these assumptions may be used to construct age prediction formulae in situations where an empirical relationship between age and crown height has not been or cannot be established. With certain provisos noted in the text, the age prediction formulae that result will probably provide reasonably reliable age profiles for the numerous ungulate species whose teeth are similar in structure to those of Red deer or “elk” and at least as hypsodont.     

Book reviews

Sponsorship, Urban Regeneration and Post‐Communism

Sir Roy Shaw (ed) The Spread of Sponsorship in the Arts, Sport, Education, the Health Service and Broadcasting. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books 1993)

Franco Bianchini & Michael Parkinson (eds) Cultural Policy and Urban Regeneration: The West European Experience (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1993)

Robert M. Reichardt & Georg Muskens (eds) Post‐communism, the Market and the Arts: First Sociological Assessments (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang 1992)     

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