Animal bones are among the most informative categories of evidence recovered during archaeological excavation, but only if they are studied systematically.
On their own, bones are often fragmentary, weathered, burnt, gnawed, or displaced. Once analysed in context, however, they become a source of evidence for subsistence, herd management, butchery, craft production, the use of animals in labour and transport, and even the organisation of activity areas within a settlement. Archaeozoology is therefore not a marginal add-on to excavation, but one of the key specialist disciplines for reconstructing everyday life in the past.
In methodological terms, archaeozoology stands at the intersection of archaeology and zoology. Its primary task is not simply to list species present on a site, but to describe and interpret animal remains in their archaeological context. This includes identifying taxa, skeletal elements, age structure, and body form, as well as documenting all traces caused by human activity, carnivores, weathering, roots, soil chemistry, and other post-depositional processes. Only by combining biological identification with contextual archaeological interpretation is it possible to understand how a given bone assemblage was formed and what it can actually tell us about past human behaviour.
This point is crucial because bone assemblages are never a simple mirror of the animals once present at a settlement. The remains that survive in the ground represent only a reduced and transformed fraction of the original living population. Some animals were butchered elsewhere, some bones decomposed, some were destroyed by soil acidity or weathering, some were broken by later human activity, and others were moved or gnawed by animals. Even excavation technique matters greatly: assemblages recovered without sieving will underrepresent small bones, fish remains, bird bones, and other delicate elements. For this reason, archaeozoological interpretation always begins with taphonomy, that is, with the study of how bone deposits were created, altered, and preserved.
A proper archaeozoological study therefore proceeds through several stages. First, the material must be recovered carefully during excavation, ideally with methods that minimise loss and secondary breakage. In specialist methodology, it is considered essential to collect all animal remains rather than selecting only larger bones. Sieving or wet-screening can be especially important where the recovery of small vertebrates, fish, molluscs, or fine skeletal fragments may change the overall interpretation of the site. After recovery, the material is cleaned, dried, stored correctly, and only then analysed. These early steps are not technical details but part of the quality of the final interpretation, because poor recovery or poor storage can permanently distort the archaeological record.
The analytical stage begins with taxonomic and anatomical identification. Bones and teeth are compared with reference collections and identification atlases in order to establish which species are represented and which parts of the skeleton are present. This is followed by the study of age, usually through tooth eruption, tooth wear, and the fusion of bone epiphyses. Where preservation allows, sex may also be estimated. Measurements can then be taken to reconstruct body size, withers height, and general morphology. Pathologies are also important, because they may indicate disease, poor conditions, heavy labour, or long-term use of animals as draught power. In this way, archaeozoology can move from simple recognition of species to much broader questions about herd structure, breeding strategy, and the practical role animals played in a community.
Equally important is the study of surface modification. Cut marks, chopping marks, burning, marrow extraction, polish, perforation, and shaping traces all help distinguish between food waste, butchery debris, craft production, and accidental or natural accumulations. Archaeozoological analysis can therefore show not only what animals were present, but how they were processed. It may reveal, for example, whether carcasses were divided on site, whether meat was cooked or roasted, whether bones were worked into tools, and whether some deposits represent ordinary domestic refuse or something more specific, such as structured deposition or activity-related dumping.
From the archaeological point of view, this has far-reaching consequences. Studies of animal bones help reconstruct economic systems, including the relative importance of cattle, pigs, sheep and goats, hunting, fishing, and the use of secondary animal products. They also help address larger questions: whether a settlement focused on meat production, dairying, wool, traction, or mixed husbandry; whether hunting played a practical or symbolic role; and how resources were distributed across a settlement. Archaeozoological evidence can even contribute to the interpretation of specific zones within a site, because different types of animal remains may cluster in houses, storage pits, ovens, middens, workshops, or ritual contexts.
Modern archaeozoology increasingly extends beyond traditional bone identification. As outlined in current methodological literature, animal remains can also serve as the basis for further specialist analyses, including ancient DNA, isotopic studies, seasonality research, and collagen-based methods such as ZooMS. These approaches can address mobility, climate, diet, kinship, and long-term population history, but they all depend on the same foundation: careful recovery, reliable identification, and good contextual control. In that sense, standard archaeozoological analysis is not only valuable in itself, but is often the prerequisite for more advanced scientific work.
For site 6 at Bytomin (Bytnik), the archaeozoological analysis was carried out for our project by Dr Renata Abłamowicz of the Bioarchaeology Laboratory, Archaeology Department, Silesian Museum in Katowice. Her study followed standard archaeozoological procedures, including species identification, anatomical attribution, age and sex assessment where possible, osteometric measurement, and the recording of butchery, burning, taphonomic change, and bone working. This specialist work provides the analytical basis for understanding how animals were used at the settlement and how the faunal assemblage was formed.
In the next entry, we will move from method to evidence and look at what the animal bone assemblage from Bytomin site 6 actually revealed.
Main methodological source: Wilczyński J. 2021. Archeozoologia. In: A. Kurzawska, I. Sobkowiak-Tabaka (eds), Mikroprzeszłość. Badania specjalistyczne w archeologii. Poznań, 199–213.