The Archaeozoological Collection

The Archaeozoological Collection is mainly researching pre- and protohistory of domestic animals and stock-farming. It deals among others with the history of domestication and of wildlife during the last 10 millenia. Therefore it is an institution involving several disciplines, such as zoology, the science of domestic animals, palaeontology and, above all, pre- and protohistory. The bulk of investigations is carried out on behalf of archaeological institutions. Essential conclusions of archaeological research rely on natural sciences, archaeozoological results being among them.

 

Archaeological zoology, shortly archaeozoology or osteo-archaeology, primarily obtains its results by scrutinizing animal bones unearthed by archaeologists. In most cases bone refuse, abundant in many pre- or protohistoric settlements, usually split up into pieces, is the only material to work with. Exceptionally more or less complete skeletons of animals can be found. Also prehistoric burial sites regularly yield not only human but also animal bones from food offerings. Now and then even entire skeletons are recovered, when animals had been interred along with the deceased.

 

In any case analyzing the finds first requires determination of the bone fragments. As far as possible investigations bear upon species, sex, age of individuals, size, shape, pathologic symptoms and traces from carving.

 

It is also important to distinguish wild and domestic forms of a species. All that allows conclusions to be drawn on the history of faunas, domesticates and economics.

The scientific collection

The three parts of the scientific collection are important instruments to accomplish the research tasks of the Archaeozoological Collection:
 

The osteological reference collection

Because determination of bone fragments cannot be achieved by identification keys as used for recent animals, the osteological reference collection is the most important tool for everyday work. A great many finds have to be classed by directly matching them with those objects. To this purpose nearly all mammals known to be of archaeological interest in Central Europe are represented, anatomically classed, in rows of single bones - a clear arrangement, which facilitates practical work. Additionally there are also some of the more common bird species at disposal. As far as possible each species is documented by specimens of different size and age, males and females, feral and domestic forms and so on. For bone finds out of the scope of this collection others are consulted. As the reference collection is permanently in use by own staff, loans are possible only in exceptional cases.

 

The Adametz-collection

Collection of archaeological bone samples

In so far as the animal bones had not to be handed back to other institutions, all the animal bone samples treated as yet by the Archaeozoological Collection are sorted and stored in an accessible way. For this purpose the collection uses a system of standardised cardboard boxes with insertable partitions. This allows even huge finds with thousands of bone fragments to be kept in basic systematic and anatomical order. These are preserved in the storage cellar of the museum. Because they are easy of access, it is possible to directly compare different samples. So questions arising later on, for instance about the distribution in space and time of certain forms and characters, may be dealt with independently from their previous identification and treatment.