Module code: ARC7046-B
This module provides an overview of i) human responses to environmental change during the Holocene; ii) selected techniques used to reconstruct past environments and past economies; iii) the impact of environmental and climatic change on people; and iv) human impacts on the natural environment.
Introduction to the topic. The study of the ecological setting of past human communities using common biological proxies – pollen, wood and insect remains. Plants and animals as resources for past human populations. Archaeological evidence for subsistence practices by hunter-gatherer-fishers, agrarian communities and pastoralists. The domestication of plant and animal resources. Sustainable and other exploitation of woodlands. Practical experience in the identification, quantification, analysis and interpretation of archaeozoological and archaeobotanical assemblages developing critical awareness of palaeoeconomic studies and human palaeoecology. Anatomical and species identification: mammals, birds, fish, marine molluscs, cereals, wood. Taphonomy; recognition and interpretation of biological material (e.g. modification of animal bone, food utility models, processing of food products, wood-working). Interpretation (e.g. age at death, sex, stature of animals, weeds and cereal ecology, woodland management). Integrative approaches to topics e.g. food and fodder, seasonality, marginality, social status, trade and exchange. Field studies of past land use on moorland and woodland in the Bradford district.
The module aims in particular to: (1) provide experience and in-depth understanding of the practical and interpretative issues concerning the identification and analysis of plant and animal remains, specifically in relation to human subsistence and economic activities; (2) provide experience in the identification of plant and animal taxa, intraspecies variation, sexual dimorphism, ageing, evidence of disease and trauma; (3) develop critical skills in assessing published literature and presentation skills.