The XVIIIth (New) International Congress of Zoology
Le XVIIIème (Nouveau) Congrès International de Zoologie
ATHENS, GREECE
28 August - 2 September 2000
Archaeozoology is the study of animal remains and animal-related artefacts (i.e., artefacts made from animal-products, animal figurations, and instruments used for animal treatment) originating from archaeological contexts, which throw light on the history of man-animal relationship and on any of the animal species involved, respectively. This field of research is of crucial importance for both archaeology and biosciences.
Humans always depended on animals as a key source of food, and probably always animals were a central part of their imagination. The increased use of meat as a diet and the emergence of hunting were important steps in the development of human biology and culture. "Developed" societies substantially base on the domestication of animals, a process which led to a fundamental transformation of both human culture and environment. Therefore, any understanding of cultural history is necessarily largely connected with the results of archaeozoology.
As for the biosciences, archaeozoological evidence gives us a major insight into the composition of early faunae and does allow palaeoecological interpretations. Faunal history of the period of human existence, but especially during the Holocene, in whatever way its development may have been influenced by man, does largely depend on the data derived by archaeozoology. And finally, a better understanding of past ecosystems connected with man may give us some idea how we can solve the present environmental problems mankind has to face.
The symposium deals with all aspects of archaeozoology, e.g. including also considerations on early man's impact on his faunal surrounding, biostratigraphy, site taphonomy, and the use of modern techniques such as DNA analysis in related studies, but in addition may comprise other related fields of research such as historic approaches to past domestic and wild faunae, and so on.
Rock Art as a Source for Zoohistory. Some General Considerations and Important New Results from the Old World
T. W. Wyrwoll
Johann Wolfgang Goethe - Universität
Social Zooarchaeology of Farming Communities. People and Animals in the
Early Neolithic in Central Europe
Dr. Arkadiusz Marciniak
Institute of Prehistory, University of Poznan
The Potential of arcaheozoology for research in extant animals
H. P. Uerpmann, Universitaet Tuebingen
Titles not yet available:
R. Klein, University of ChicagoPOSTER CONTRIBUTIONS
The Myth of Cyclops polyphemus and the Paleontological Reality in the Cave of Cyclops, Maronia, Greece
A. Bartsiokas
Prehistoric Human-Bird Interactions In the Balkans: Bronze and Early Iron Age Representations of Birds
R. P. Vasic and V. F. Vasic
ICZ RESOURCES