Summary

 

This publication is the volume of the ICAZ Archaeomalacology Working group of the proceedings of the 11th International Conference of the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ), which was held in Paris (France) 23rd-28th August 2010. Twenty-three papers are published with evidences of human collection and modification of shells from all over the world and at a large scale of chronology (from Prehistory to Antiquity). The papers are organized in three sub-sessions. The section “Acquisition and use of shell raw materials in prehistory” focuses on patterns of acquisition and use of shell raw materials as well as on the production sequences of shell items in time and space. Specific themes of interest include the exploitation of shells as raw materials in relation to their dietary functions, or choices made to use particular shells along with or as opposed to other raw materials.

The section “Shell middens and shells as a food resource” provides a venue to explore the relationships between human groups and molluscan resources and especially encourages the combination of information derived from multiple disciplines, as well as studies that seek to contextualise shell-gathering in a wider socio-economic context. The section “Shells as indicators of palaeoenvironment, site formation and transformation” aims to investigate the potential of archaeological shell to answer questions not directly related to subsistence or material culture and especially welcomes contributions which mobilise the study of archaeological shell in relation to modern resource management and environmental change.

 


Contents

 

Editors of the volume

 

Katherine Szabó, Catherine Dupont, Vesna Dimitrijević, Luis Gómez Gastélum and Nathalie Serrand

 

Preface

 

Jean-Denis Vigne, Christine Lefèvre and Marylène Patou-Mathis

 

Introduction

 

Acquisition and use of shell raw materials in prehistory

 

1.        The use of marine mollusc shells at the Neolithic site Shkarat Msaied, Jordan

Aiysha Abu-Laban

2.        Evaluating the role of molluscan shells assemblage recovered from Padri, a coastal Harappan settlement in Gujarat, India

Arati Deshpande-Mukherjee and Vasant Shinde

3.        The provenance and use of fossil scaphopod shells at the Late Neolithic/Eneolithic site Vinča – Belo Brdo, Serbia

Vesna Dimitrijević

4.        Perforated shells from an Early Mesolithic cemetery at La Vergne (Charente-Maritime, France): from acquisition to use and (sometimes) to wear

Catherine Dupont, Luc Laporte, Patrice Courtaud, Henri Duday and Yves Gruet

5.        Shell use in West Mexico and the Southwestern United States. An archaeological comparison

Luis Gómez Gastélum

6.        Occurences of exogenous freshwater mussel shells (Bivalvia: Unionida) during the precolumbian ceramic age of the lesser Antilles

Nathalie Serrand and Kevin S. Cummings

7.        Dead from the sea: worn shells in Aegean prehistory

Tatiana Theodoropoulou

8.        Temporal changes in shell bead technologies based on Levantine examples

Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer

9.        Shell tools in an early Neolithic coastal site in the Cantabrian region (Northern Spain): an experimental program for use-wear analysis at Santimamiñe cave

David Cuenca-Solana, Igor Gutiérrez-Zugasti and Ignacio Clemente

 

Shell middens and shells as a food resource

 

10.    Shell Middens and the use of molluscs in the Late Middle Holocene in the Rio de la Plata: an ethnoarchaeological contribution

Laura Beovide

11.    Marine Resource Exploitation at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis (Red Sea, Egypt). The Harbour of the Pharaohs to the Land of Punt

Alfredo Carannante, Rodolfo Fattovich and Carla Pepe

12.    Shellfish gathering during the Iron Age and Roman times in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula

Carlos Fernández-Rodríguez, Víctor Bejega-García and Eduardo González-Gómez-de-Agüero

13.    Shellfishing and Horticulture in Prehistoric Northern New Zealand

Tiffany James-Lee

14.    Fisher-Gatherers of the Red Sea: Results of the Farasan Archipelago Shell Sites Project

Matt Gregory Meredith Williams

15.    Shell exploitation at Playa del Tesoro and Banderas Mexican Pacific coast

José Beltrán

16.    Oysters, Pheasants and Fine Foods. “High Class” Products in Alife (Campania, Italy) during and after the Roman Empire.

Alfredo Carannante, Salvatore Chilardi, Daniela Rebbecchi, Annalisa Del Santo, Roberto Vedovelli

17.    Archaeozoological analysis of molluscan fauna from the Late Bronze Age stratum of site 4 of Tell Jenin (Northern West Bank, Palestine)

Ademar Ezzughayyar, Khalid M. Swaileh

18.    Acquisition and management of marine invertebrates resources on a pre-Roman coastal settlement : the site of Dossen Rouz (Locquémeau-Trédrez, Brittany, France)

Caroline Mougne, Catherine Dupont, Anna Baudry, Laurent Quesnel and Marie-Yvane Daire

 

Shells as indicators of palaeoenvironment, site formation and transformation

 

19.    Dynamics of palaeoenvironmental conditions over the last millennia by archaeomalacological data (on example of ADK-009 shell midden, Adak Island, Aleutian Islands)

Zhanna Antipushina

20.    Biostratigraphy of shells and climate changes in the Cantabrian region (Northern Spain) during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition

Igor Gutiérrez-Zugasti and David Cuenca-Solana

21.    Deposits of terrestrial snails: Natural or Anthropogenic processes?

Eloísa Bernáldez-Sánchez and Esteban García-Viñas

22.    Micro-Freshwater Gastropod Remains from Çatalhöyük, Turkey: Preliminary Environmental Observations

Burçin Aşkım Gümüs and, Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer

23.    Mollusc Shells from Archaeological Building Materials

Matt Law