Abstract
A method is described for the sorting and identification of archaeological fishbone assemblages from the tropical Pacific region using a comparative collection of about 300 species of Pacific fishes. This involves several stages of sorting and re-bagging to break down the task into manageable proportions. Bones identified routinely are the dentary, articular, quadrate, premaxilla, maxilla, and several “special” bones which are characteristic of certain fishes. The identification method is serviced by a computer database management system, which allows interactive and recursive analysis of results at several levels. At the lowest level it allows entry of new data into the system, and at the highest level permits comparative study of ancient fishing behaviour from selections of assemblages from various parts of the Pacific. About 17,000 identifications are at present on file from Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia.
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