Species identification of archaeological dung remains: A critical review of potential methods

Veerle Linseele, Heiko Riemer, Jan Baeten, Dirk De Vos, Elena Marinova and Claudio Ottoni

Environmental Archaeology, 2013, vol. 18, issue 1, 5-17

Abstract: Dung, macroscopically recognisable as such or not, can more commonly be found in archaeological contexts than is perhaps realised. Up to now, identification of dung to the species which produced it is usually either tenuous, or is not possible. However, species identification can be very informative and is necessary before any further studies can be conducted on the dung, for example on health and hygiene in the past and palaeoecology. This study presents a review of potential methods by which species identifications of archaeological dung can be undertaken. Criteria for identification can be divided into three broad categories: morphometric features of the dung; the content of dung and contextual evidence. Overall, the chances of a precise identification are high; however, a combination of different criteria and techniques will often be necessary to establish a secure identification. Moreover, preservation issues may exclude the application of some criteria while several criteria require more research and the expansion of reference collections of recent material. The overall aim is to move towards standardised methods for species identification of archaeological dung.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1179/1461410313Z.00000000019 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:yenvxx:v:18:y:2013:i:1:p:5-17

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/yenv20

DOI: 10.1179/1461410313Z.00000000019

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Archaeology is currently edited by Tim Mighall

More articles in Environmental Archaeology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().