5 - Archaeofaunas and Butchery Studies: A Taphonomic Perspective

Abstract

This chapter reviews the two major goals of butchery analysis within an historic context of several decades ago. It focuses on analytic techniques that have been and are being used to identify the hominid taphonomic agent in butchery analyses. It presents a brief description of how butchering patterns are infer. It also presents an explicitly taphonomic approach to the analysis of butchery in an attempt to integrate analytical techniques and goals into a coherent whole. The chapter also presents an example of butchery analysis that illustrates the explicitly taphonomic approach. It also explores the more recent attempts aimed specifically at identifying the taphonomic agents involved in faunal processing.