Lewis R. Binford's Impact on Zooarchaeology

Abstract

Zooarchaeology asked the same research questions and answered them the same ways between 1950 and 1980. Change occurred when actualistic research revealed that the taphonomy of a collection of faunal remains could significantly skew interpretations. Lewis Binford's ethnoarchaeological work among Alaskan Inuit peoples focused on how human behaviors created bone assemblages and how carnivore behaviors influenced those bone assemblages. That research provided new interpretive models based on the frequencies of prey-carcass parts and their economic utility. Binford published a wealth of actualistic data and his models on economic utility in his 1978 book <i>Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology.</i> In his 1981 book <i>Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths</i> and his 1984 book <i>Faunal Remains from Klasies River Mouth</i>, he used the Nunamiut models and suggested that our early hominid ancestors scavenged much of the meat they consumed contrary to the then popular view that those ancestors were hunters. Binford's legacy to zooarchaeology can be considered revolutionary in a Kuhnian sense because that legacy comprises major alterations to how we analyze and interpret faunal remains, as well as significant changes to what we think we know about the behaviors of our early hominid ancestors.