Zooarchaeology of the Modern Era: An Introduction

Eric Tourigny; Rebecca Gordon

doi:10.1007/s10761-022-00670-7

Zooarchaeology of the Modern Era: An Introduction

Int J Hist Archaeol. 2023;27(2):267-273. doi: 10.1007/s10761-022-00670-7. Epub 2022 Aug 6.

Authors

Eric Tourigny¹, Rebecca Gordon²

Affiliations

¹ School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU UK.
² Bluebell Close, Bedford, MK42 0RN UK.

Abstract

The last 500 years is characterized by immense socioeconomic and environmental transformations on a global scale. Animals were significantly affected by these processes but were also central to many of the transformations that shaped the modern world. While there has been a growing number of researchers investigating animal bones from archaeological sites from this period, the "Zooarchaeology of the Modern Era" working group provides the first dedicated forum for these scholars to meet. This paper introduces a special collection of studies which resulted from the first meeting of this research group and explores how these investigations help us understand our modern world.

Keywords: Human-animal relationships; Modern era; Social zooarchaeology; Zooarchaeology.