Human and Animal Ecology in Deep Time
When archaeologists dig down into the soil, they are digging into the past. Unearthed sites contain a variety materials that provide clues about past human societies, including bones, ceramics, and stone tools. Animal remains (fragments of bones, teeth, horns/antlers, and shells) provide another kind of information that is utilized by zooarchaeologists (a subdiscipline of archaeology) to reconstruct past human ecology and environmental conditions. What did people eat? What can past fauna of the time tell us about past climate? How did people adapt to changing environments? And, how can this information about the past be used to inform current efforts in conservation biology?
Dr. Steve Wolverton, Associate Professor in the UNT Department of Geography, aims to answer these questions through his research on the ecology of animal body size, food residues, and conservation biology. By studying geographic patterns of animal body size, Dr. Wolverton aims to uncover how the environment and habitat quality have changed through time. For example, rainfall can affect animal body size by altering the amount of vegetation on the landscape, directly affecting animal growth. To better understand past human diet, Dr. Wolverton is collaborating with Dr. Barney Venables (UNT Department of Biological Sciences) and Dr. Stan Stevens (University of South Florida) on a cutting-edge NSF-funded interdisciplinary project that seeks to develop and explore methods for identifying food residues from ancient cooking pottery. If successful, the project will provide archaeologists with the tools they need to more precisely determine what people cooked and ate in the past.
In addition to these fundamental questions about ancient human societies, zooarchaeology offers important lessons for conservation biology (defined as the use of biological principles to protect and preserve biodiversity). In their recently published book, "Conservation Biology and Applied Zooarchaeology", Dr. Wolverton and Dr. R. Lee Lyman (University of Missouri) and contributing authors provide case studies that demonstrate the importance of studying deep time in conservation biology.
For more information about Dr. Wolverton and his research group, you can visit his webpage here.