Thanks to its high nutritional potential and huge ivory canines, walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) appears to have been a key resource in the subsistence economy of Dorset groups. However present archaeological data are sparse and a more global analysis of its exploitation by the Palaeoeskimos is required. The Tayara site (KbFk-7) in Nunavik (Quebec, Canada) yielded a significant assemblage of walrus bones and many manufactured ivory objects. In addition, Tayara serves as a reference site in Eastern Arctic cultural chronology. A thorough zooarchaeological study has been conducted which includes skeletal profile, the sexing and ageing of walrus bones, and a technological study of the manufactured objects, including a use-wear analysis on lithic tools. This allows the discussion of several aspects of the modus operandi for the exploitation of walrus, from the death of the animal to the processing of the raw material into artefacts. Even if the walrus seems to have been treated with the same processes as other species, some specificities have been noted, particularly in the selection of the different skeletal elements for tool productions and the emblematic value that this animal may have played in consumption and production activities.

Although it is well known that modern Inuit in the resource-rich Foxe Basin region of Arctic Canada historically relied, and continue to rely, heavily on walrus, our knowledge of Thule Inuit walrus use in the area is limited. In this paper, new data is presented indicating walrus were being exploited intensively by Thule Inuit at NeHd-1 (Sanirajak), a winter site on the Foxe Basin coast of northeastern Melville Peninsula. Faunal remains from six large, discrete front-middens—each associated with a semisubterranean winter house—were examined. Of the specimens identified to species, walrus comprised nearly half of the aggregate sample; no archaeofaunal assemblage anywhere in the Canadian Arctic has produced so high a proportion. It is suggested that a pre-adaptation to organized, group hunting of both bowhead whales and walrus by Thule Inuit may have facilitated a year-round walrus-hunting industry centered on the acquisition and possible trade of reliably large amounts of meat, blubber, hides and ivory. An examination of walrus element frequencies at NeHd-1 indicated the need for a meat utility index (MUI) specific to walrus, and a modified meat utility index (MMUI) that takes into account the desirability of ivory.

Zooarchaeologists continue to experience difficulty defining the importance of bowhead (Balaen mysticetus) whaling in Neoeskimo coastal deposits. The large size of bowhead bones, combined with their use as structural elements in Neoeskimo architecture, creates a suite of taphonomic issues that tend to obscure their usefulness as a measure of relative abundance, and thus as an overall economic indicator. Here we present a regional approach that focuses on contrasts in relative taxonomic abundance between sites with diverse economic signatures, supported by related differences in element frequencies, site locations, features, artefact frequencies, and manufacturing detritus. Using this approach, a generalized picture of the relative importance of bowhead whales in Neoeskimo subsistence economies can be assembled. Such an analysis, applied to the archaeological record of the Mackenzie Inuit, or Siglit, reveals the role that bowhead whaling played in subsistence economies from the 15^th to 19^th centuries AD. Specifically, the archaeological record indicates that the prehistoric Qikiqtaryungmiut and Nuvugarmiut practiced specialized bowhead whaling at coastal promontories, though the seasonal scheduling and success rate of these hunts contrasted considerably.

The archaeological site at Iita in Northwest Greenland offers a unique opportunity to investigate the importance of small game in Inughuit (Polar Eskimo) and Thule subsistence. The presence of large colonies of dovekie (Alle alle) at Iita has played a key role in attracting people to this area for the past eight hundred years. An estimated 15 million pairs of dovekie breed along the northwest coast of Greenland during the summer months, offering humans access to reliable meat for winter storage as well as bird skins for clothing. Of the 25,000 faunal remains recovered from the 2006 excavation of two winter houses at Iita, dating from AD 1400–1920, the majority were dovekie bones (N= 17,287), which suggests a reliance on these small birds. Under optimal foraging models, the presence of small animals in the diet is generally associated with reduced foraging efficiency, but many such interpretations do not account for the changed costs and benefits associated with mass capture. Ethnographic accounts from Northwest Greenland indicate that dovekie were captured en masse using nets, changing the appropriate unit of comparison from the individual dovekie to the total prey biomass caught simultaneously. This paper addresses the importance of dovekie as a reliable food source at Iita, and considers whether they were ranked highly as a result of mass capturing technology or whether they were a starvation food, relied upon when large game was unobtainable due to loss of important hunting technology.

This paper presents description and interpretation of 20 caribou bone assemblages from Inuit sites on the Kazan River in northern Canada. A diversity of features including caches, disposal areas, and surface scatters, are quantified in order to understand aspects of butchery, transport, and storage of caribou carcasses. Element distributions are compared to four published indices which quantify bone density, food utility, meat drying, and marrow, in order to understand which factors played important roles in decision-making by Inuit in the region. While several factors are identified as having affected these assemblages, by far the most important factor relates to the season during which the caribou were hunted. During warm seasons, the drying of meat dictated relatively complex division of the carcass for processing and storage. During colder seasons, on the other hand, rapid freezing of meat allowed for greater flexibility, which often simply meant that entire articulated carcasses were cached after skinning and gutting.

In 2012, a series of interviews was carried out with Greenlandic hunters (26 to 86 years old) on caribou hunting and utilization in central West Greenland. As recently as 1950 AD, almost all parts of the caribou were utilized intensively. In the following decades, numerous uses disappeared, and a few new ones were added. A few Greenlanders reported that they had experienced the utilization of parts of caribou during their childhood that they had not used in the last decades. The intensive use of fat and caribou hides disappeared, whereas the exploitation of caribou as a tourist attraction was new. A portion of the earlier pattern of caribou utilization would be visible in an archaeozoological investigation, however a significant part would remain undetectable.

The reconstruction of Stone Age subsistence in Finland is almost solely based on the study of burned bone assemblages from settlement sites. Seal bones dominate Stone Age refuse fauna while bird and fish bones are almost absent. The problem of the absence of bird and fish bones has been acknowledged, but so far the dominance of seal bone has been taken as a sign of (specialized) seal hunting as the main subsistence activity. In this article we question the use of archaeological refuse fauna as the single basis for the study of hunter-gatherer subsistence. We conducted a series of experiments to test how interspecies differences in bone characteristics may bias our current understanding of Finnish prehistoric subsistence. Our preliminary results clearly show interspecies differences in bone combustion qualities and in bone preservation. Further structural and densitometric analyses reveal significant differences in the medullary cavity of seal vs. terrestrial mammal bones. Our results also open new perspectives concerning the use of bone as an additional fuel source in prehistoric hearths.

About the art of fattening cattle in Charolais, birthplace of the Charolais breed.

In the late XIXth century important developments took place in the Charolais, the birthplace of the Charolais breed. As breeding was developing and selection improved the breed, a division of tasks took place in the cattle production cycle between breeders specialized in the births of calves (called “eleveurs-naisseurs”) and breeders fattening cattle on grass (called “emboucheurs”). The fattening of cattle intended for butcher's shops became a specialization of the Brionnais area which exploited to the utmost the rich pastures it possessed. “In the land where people grow beef steaks”, the art of bringing cattle to their complete growth is a know-how transmitted to the following generations. It consists of finding the ideal animal, which, once left on the meadow that suits it best, develops all its potential, turning the grass it eats into meat. Fattening cattle requires excellent knowledge of cattle and a control of the various stages of the process, from the purchase of lean cattle in cattle-rearing areas to the sale of the fattened animals to wholesale butchers or butchers. The learning of the skill starts at an early age by attending fair grounds and observing what the elders do. In 1887, a specialized trade union (“Syndicat des Emboucheurs”) was created in Saint-Christophe-en-Brionnais. Consequently, the official practices of fattening cattle, based on an original mode of the development of pastures, left their marks on the countryside by shaping the very characteristic bocage in the Charolais-Brionnais area.

Archaeomalacological Study of El Truchiro Mesolithic Site (Omoño, Ribamontán al Monte, Cantabria).

El Truchiro is one of the caves in the La Garma Archaeological Complex (Omoño, Ribamontán al Monte, Cantabria). The archaeological excavation of the deposits from this site yielded Chalcolithic and Mesolithic material, including a large number of marine and terrestrial molluscs. The second stratigraphic layer consists of a shell-midden in an excellent state of preservation sealed between two layers of speleothems. This well-preserved layer is formed mainly of marine gastropods (limpets and top shells) and terrestrial snails (Cepaea nemoralis). These species were gathered by ancient people on the coast and in the areas surrounding the cave. After being consumed the shells were discarded inside the cave. In addition, at the base of this layer one of the few Mesolithic inhumations in northern Spain was documented. The grave goods included shells of the marine molluscs Cerastoderma sp. and Trivia sp., species that are found on the north Spanish coast. This paper studies the archaeomalacological evidence in the sequence at El Truchiro from different points of view: taxonomy, taphonomy, technology, stratigraphy and spatial distribution.