Taphonomy through fisheyes: an historical and methodological overview

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in archaeological fish taphonomy, synthesizing key achievements in the field. We remark that although taphonomic research in archaeology has traditionally focused on mammalian remains, fish taphonomy began to grow steadily from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and was followed by exponential growth in subsequent decades. Today, fish taphonomy is experiencing an unprecedented expansion in scope, objectives, methodologies, and analytical techniques. This progress has enabled the developmemt of both quantitative and qualitative criteria for reliably identifying the agents responsible for fish accumulation (e.g., humans, animals, natural deaths) and the diagenetic processes involved (e.g., cultural practices, deformations, abrasion). Throughout the paper we stress the significant role that state-of-the-art techniques and meta-data analyses play to enhance our understanding of how taphonomic processes shape the preservation of fish remains in archaeological contexts, broadening the analytical tools to reconstruct ancient human communities and their economies.