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Archaeozoology in Greece: A Brief Historiography of the Science. Katerina Trantalidou
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ABSTRACT:
The archaeology of classical Greece has been the main field of
concentration for research programmes and excavations during the last two
centuries. The abundance of literary sources and impressive archaeological
discoveries from this period, all over the Aegean, provide the reason for
this orientation. Scientific investigation of civilizations without
writing, using all forms of archaeological data, including faunal remains,
has certainly progressed in the last four decades. In Greece, studies of
the Neolithic and Bronze Age have been many, while paleolithic deposits
and sites have until recently received far less attention.
In addition, there has been no important tradition of zoological
research in Greece, as there was in Occidental Europe in the 18th
century. There is only one private natural history museum, two local state
museums in Crete and Macedonia, and several comparative collections in the
universities. Thus, the study of archaeozoology as a source of historical
information has been slow to develop.
The study of archaeological animals bones in Greece began with the
occasional work of zoologists from Germany, Hungary, France and the
Scandinavian countries, and was generally limited to the determination of
species and anatomical part represented. Their basic studies and
methodology, plus the corpus of such studies in adjacent countries and the
whole of the south Mediterranean, provided a solid framework for the
studies of contemporary archaeozoologists, their successors. Major topics
for English and American scientists studying Greek assemblages were the
economic and ethnological interpretation of faunal remains. By the 1980's
Greek scientists had also begun to study and publish in archaeozoology.
These more recent studies, with the growth of scientific knowledge and
methods, including those of taphonomy, theories and explanations have
converged on one analytical objective, how to get more information
concerning the internal history of the site. Archaeozoological papers on
Greek assemblages are regularly presented and published as part of special
topical Conference Proceedings. Published site reports may also present
the analysis of archaeozoological data. Still, there are no Greek
scientific journals which regularly publish archaeozoological reports.
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