Animal Use and Culture Change

What can one learn from the study of faunal remains, other than information about paleoeconomy and subsistence technology? The papers in this volume are designed to begin to answer that question. The case studies presented are more than simply analyses of past subsistence systems; they provide examples, drawn from various parts of the world, of the ways in which zooarchaeological data can be used to study trade, social status, and ethnicity in complex societies and of the ways in which faunal remains can contribute to our understanding of the processes of cultural change.