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Cute Animals Galore! - Ep 64
776 Plays1 year ago
From quokkas to otters, we have selected some of the most endearing animals on the planet to bring you the ‘Cutest Case Studies of All Time’. Tune in to learn more about the anatomy and zooarchaeologies of the cutest of creatures.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/64
Links and Sources
- The Duckbilled Playtpus (1799) - The Museum of Hoaxes
- Basumatary, S. K. et al. (2021). Red Panda feces from Eastern Himalaya as a modern analogue for palaeodietary and palaeoecological analyses. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 18312.
- Borella, F., & Cruz, I. (2012). Taphonomic evaluation of penguin (Spheniscidae) remains at a shell-midden on the northern coast of Patagonia (San Matías Gulf, Río Negro, Argentina). Quaternary International, 278, 45-50.
- Clayton, J. L. (1966). The growth and economic significance of the American fur trade, 1790-1890. Minnesota History, 40(4), 210-220.
More links at https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/64
Contact
- Alex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitz
- Simona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLady
- Alex’s Blog: Animal Archaeology
- Music "Coconut - (dyalla remix)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY
Affiliates
- Motion: https://www.archpodnet.com/motion
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Transcript
Introduction to the Archaeology Podcast Network
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Episode 64: Arceo Animals and Cute Animals Focus
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 64 of Arceo Animals. Cute animals galore! Huzzah. Or something like that. Yeah. A very low energy start to what should be a very cute and fun episode, I think, hopefully. I'm your host, Alex Fitzpatrick, and with me as always...
Why Focus on Cute Animals?
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, I guess to get right into it, I mean, because we have a lot to cover. We spend so much of our time on this show talking about like, weird animals, and gross animals, and dead animals, mainly dead animals, I guess really.
00:01:04
Speaker
98% dead animals, really. Fictional animals, you know, like, but we don't really get a chance to focus on the cutest animals on the planet. We've devoted entire episodes on, you know, some very cute animals. We've talked about cats, we've talked about dogs and rabbits. So we have covered some very, very cute animals over the last over five years now. Yeah.
00:01:33
Speaker
I mean, in a way, like when we have a glance upon sort of many cute animals, both in the past and present, but we've not really had the time to actually sit down and properly discuss them. So
Combining Cute Animals with Archaeology
00:01:44
Speaker
that brings us here and bringing together, you know, two of your favourite things, probably cute animals and case studies for like one episode of like cutest case studies of all time, which is basically just going to be an hour of us going,
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, basically. And, you know, like we said, we have covered some cute animals in the past, and we are going to use this episode to revisit some of the animals that we've kind of touched upon. But we never really had a chance to kind of talk in a bit longer, in a longer way, because, you know,
00:02:24
Speaker
You can only do so many episodes that are themed about like a really broad thing before you can, you know, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm already kind of ready to think about cute things, you know, just get myself going. So yeah, we'll be talking about some animals that we've talked about in the past and we'll try and mention where
00:02:48
Speaker
We've talked about them in the past. So you can if you want to go back and listen to them, although I realized I didn't write down any of the actual episode numbers. So you'll just have to, you'll just have to Google it, I guess. You just have to listen to the entire catalog. You're just gonna have to re listen folks. Sorry, but you know, but we'll also talk about a few new ones that I don't think we talked about. Although again, as Simona said, we've been doing this for over five years. So it's really easy to not
00:03:17
Speaker
remember.
Hedgehogs: Archaeological Significance and Anecdotes
00:03:19
Speaker
So, um, let's start it off with an animal that we've definitely, albeit very, very briefly covered. And it's the humble hedgehog.
00:03:31
Speaker
erinace species, because of course, yeah, a variety of species of hedgehogs. Pretty sure we discussed them in our small creatures episode, specifically talking about hedgehogs in the Neolithic period. Yeah, we talked about them. I think the case study in particular was about Neolithic hedgehogs in Sweden, and people measuring
00:03:56
Speaker
remains to kind of figure out where there's been connections between some of the islands like Gotland and Sweden in the past because obviously that's the only way really hedgehogs will make it from the island to mainland Sweden. Which is like the one angle that makes them interesting from an osteological point of view. Of course in the case of Britain, which Alex and myself are most accustomed to, we'll see, they're not
00:04:24
Speaker
particularly useful. You can find them so usually left them so like in environmental samples because the remains do tend to be quite small though not as small as some you know sort of like smaller rodents and mice and rats but nevertheless they're on the small side of life and yeah they've lived here for thousands of years and they live in in fields
00:04:47
Speaker
and green areas. And it's like, oh, who'd have thunk? But usefulness is that they are incredibly cute. Yes. You know, I think even from talking about anything interesting about them anatomically, like, asiologically, they are, you know,
00:05:07
Speaker
It's what you expect from a skeleton. I think really the most interesting thing to talk about when it comes to like anatomically is their spines, which are hollow and they're made of keratin, you know, the same material that's made that makes up your hair, your nails, all that kind of stuff. And interestingly enough, I don't know if I've told you this, Simona, but hedgehogs have moved into my yard this year.
00:05:32
Speaker
Oh, very exciting. I actually even bought like a whole little habitat for them, which they are not using obviously. Um, but yeah, no, I, I've been leaving food out for them, which is being eaten by our neighborhood cats obviously. But other than that, you know, very happy to be hosting hedgehogs. They're very cute. You can hear them snuffling around at night. It's very sweet.
00:05:57
Speaker
I sometimes depending on the time of year, I can see them at dawn because I wake up quite early in the morning. So you see them doing their last round of shopping, so to speak, as they head out of the garden, and they will check all the bits around the raised beds where normally slugs would gather doing their little rounds. I mean, that I say they like there is just the one male that's coming around at the minute that I can reliably
Hedgehogs in Ancient Egypt and Cultural Symbolism
00:06:21
Speaker
see whom I've called Plutarch.
00:06:24
Speaker
If he likes it or not, that's too bad. It's called Plutarch. Speaking about Plutarch, I guess we could talk about how hedgehogs have been in many cultures, both past and present. We're talking about archaeological uses of hedgehogs. They have been used and are so often used as a food source and a medicinal resource.
00:06:48
Speaker
But perhaps more interesting from an archaeological perspective, they have a vast footprint in iconography, particularly, and this is, I don't think we talked about this at all, but in later periods of ancient Egypt,
00:07:03
Speaker
You could actually find loads of hedgehog iconography, which is something I actually really didn't know about. For some reason, I've never even really seen Egyptian hedgehog depictions, but there's loads. For some reason, they're depicted in tomb reliefs as little votive figures.
00:07:24
Speaker
as ambulance and perhaps most interestingly as figureheads for boats and not just like one boat. There are several boats I believe that have been found to have hedgehog figureheads. It's amazing. Cool.
00:07:45
Speaker
I mean, like I take it because I just said that they're not awfully interesting from an archaeological standpoint. They are just what I was referring to from sort of a paleo-environmental reconstruction perspective in the case of Britain, they're not terribly useful. But yes, they have been used for sustenance and they're vastly used in iconography in other parts of the world as well.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of cultural symbolism elements, you know, it's associated with like protection for very obvious reasons, but also rebirth. But yeah, no, it's one of those things that I think we don't really have, even though we have hedgehogs in the UK, we don't really have like a big long cultural kind of connotation, at least when it comes to archaeology, which is a shame, we should have hedgehog figureheads on boats.
00:08:37
Speaker
to be fair, like maybe like the ancient Egyptians just just find hedgehogs cute. I mean, I'm sure you can buy hedgehog necklaces now. It's not necessarily an amulet or a voter figure, but just like hedgehogs. True. Very true. With my super like utilitarian like, oh, maybe they just thought it was cute.
00:08:57
Speaker
the truth probably lying in the middle, but it's probably both. Because I can assure you there are some Egyptians out there saying, yep, that's cute. I'm gonna go put it on my tomb, because it's cute. Merle But yeah, to keep the cute train running. I mean, I think this animal is particularly cute, and also a big meme.
Capybaras: Popularity and Meme Culture
00:09:20
Speaker
Nowadays, I feel like the kids love capybaras.
00:09:25
Speaker
And just the fact that you said the kids like, the kids love it, just showed our age. Yeah, it is a meme, although probably on the older side of it. But capybaras, you'd require us to do carries. Yeah, your lot is gonna be worked out in this episode.
00:09:49
Speaker
Um, which, uh, if you've been following the memes in recent years, they just love everything and everyone. They just, they go with everything. Yes. You put them somewhere, they'll make friends with everyone around them and then just sit there and look peaceful. Makes me so happy. I've seen so many iterations of it. Them with like cats, them with like dogs, them with like sheep. I mean, it's great.
00:10:19
Speaker
No, it's it's great. I wish I could like channel my inner capybara more often, but I'm just a fox with anxiety. We should we should all be like the capybara. For those who have not heard of the capybara, please come out from under your rock any minute now. But also, no, it's seriously though, it's it's the largest living rodent species. It has been used
00:10:46
Speaker
as a food source in many parts of South America. And that sort of is reflected in the archaeological record because you do see that evidence of it being used for sustenance in archaeological contexts as well.
00:11:00
Speaker
It's not Ocurotica related at all. Do you want to go for it, Alex? Yeah, because I was like, you know, I will admit that some of these cute animals we talked about had some very tenuous archaeological because a lot of the animals we'll be talking about a lot of them really don't have anything, you know, particularly
00:11:19
Speaker
I don't want to say interesting, but like, a lot of them are kind of going to be, when we talk about them archaeologically, we're kind of just talking about, you know, natural deposits and paleo-environmental applications of their remains, right? So I was trying to see something interesting with copybowers, and this is what I found interesting, and it has nothing to do with archaeology, but there's been some research undertaken on whether or not
00:11:44
Speaker
Onsen, which are the Japanese hot springs. And if you look up pictures of capybaras, you'll find loads of photos of them hanging out. And these Onsen are good for them. And spoiler alert, they are really good for them. And I wanted an excuse to share a photo of them just chilling with Simona, which I put in the show notes so she can look at it. I know. I love those pictures so much because it's like I will never feel that kind of peace in my life. My brains are broken.
00:12:12
Speaker
for a slightly quick tangent. That's a quick tangent. You said about like many of these animals, there's not a lot going for them from the zoo archaeological standpoint. But in a way, are we writing the zoo archaeology of these cool animals?
00:12:28
Speaker
because they wouldn't be used for subsidence. They'll just be used for means and education and podcast recording. Yes, true. You know, evidence of the capybara in this podcast from 150 years ago. This is why you're my co host. I need this. You have that analytical brain that's really useful for this thing. I just want to talk about cute animals. I didn't really want to really make up for real reason for it.
00:12:52
Speaker
made her so philosophical. I went to uni for many years for this. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Okay, moving very swiftly on onto some actual science. Yeah, well, you know, again, it's another cute animal. Come on. It's one that we've talked about, though, the soy sheep, which is just ovissaries.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yay, I did it. Alex was Latin. Yes, a very commonly used word for us. So yeah, we actually have discussed this one in our primitive breeds episode. Just a real quick kind of recap of what the Soei sheep are. They can be traced back to a feral population from the island of Soei in the St. Kilda archipelago.
00:13:42
Speaker
They remained physically quite close to what ancient sheep likely looked like. And, you know, they've been really useful in helping archaeologists kind of further understand early sheep, human relations, potentially may have been brought from St. Kilda to England by noted archaeologists and all around bad guy Augustus Pitt Rivers, who may have also been one of the first people to recognize their usefulness in archaeology.
00:14:12
Speaker
And now with the sowing sheep, actually, if I remember correctly, they present the characteristic that a lot of the modern sheep breeds don't have, as in they will shed. Yes, I believe so. They will shed. So if you need to share them or actually harvest that amount of sort of the wool, you have to literally pluck them.
00:14:32
Speaker
which you tend to get with a lot of the basal breeds of sheep of which the Sowy is one. Because of course, as we've practiced more artificial selections of sheep for our own benefit, we've sort of put that extra control onto our hands where like, we would have to physically go and share them. So we would acquire all of the resource all at once. So it's just something we have bred into them to get that extra bit of control.
00:15:00
Speaker
Soa sheep are kind of considered to be maybe, and this is probably a bit simplified, but some archaeologists consider them to be kind of what, you know, bronze sheep would eventually be like. And these, for the most part in the North Atlantic, they were more or less replaced by Arneid sheep, which are closer to like the Hebridean sheep. However, obviously in the island of Soa, they've remained
00:15:30
Speaker
as they are. And it's good for us because it's just helpful in kind of thinking about how ancient sheep breeds would have been and how they would have looked like. And yeah. And they're cute. They're very cute. Speaking of... Keeping it on the Domestika train. Another cute undulute that is the Highland Cow. Do you want to do the Latin for this? Bus Taurus.
00:15:59
Speaker
A specifically a Scottish breed of cattle. And I even wrote down the Scottish Gaelic and I even wrote down the pronunciation and I still don't feel confident in saying it. Right. Give it a go. Give it a go. Yes. I think that's right. Apologies in advance.
Highland Cows: Origins and Archaeological Challenges
00:16:21
Speaker
Probably. Yeah.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, if you're Scottish, sorry. Sorry. I mean, realistically, if you're Scottish, and you've been listening to this podcast, like real sorry for me. But I mean, there's some dispute over their actual origins were whether they were originally bred in Scotland, or they were imported sort of via the Vikings aka Scandinavian seafaring peoples, whether they were bred from two particular breeds of cattle,
00:16:49
Speaker
is unknown. The jury's still out. Probably a combination of all these things. Let's face it. But they weren't a recognised breed until the late 1800s in Scotland. Archaeologically, however, besides them being incredibly cute, and probably still looking cute back then, not an awful lot we can say about them, because as you may know, if you've been listening along to the show, you can't really be fair in shape between breeds.
00:17:15
Speaker
because underneath they all look the same, o Theologically speaking. Yeah, unless we're talking about modern day dog or cat breeds, which obviously o Theologically they can be extremely different. For the most part, particularly when we're talking about sheep and cattle breeds, it's pretty difficult. I think there's probably some morphological differences, but
00:17:39
Speaker
you'd have to be yeah, also apply the same that goes for cats and dogs applies to others like a more far removed. Yeah, into the past as well. Because even though they would have had breeds of say dogs, back then, they would be nothing or not necessarily anything like the breeds that we have now. So you wouldn't be able Oh, is this Roman Doberman? It's that's
00:18:02
Speaker
not how it works, I mean based on the um so the osteology uh you can maybe get an idea sort of what the function of the dog was or whether it was more of a site hound looking dog but that's probably as far as it goes tangent. So yeah we can't really differentiate between breeds so there's not much we can really say about this archaeologically I just think they're cute.
00:18:26
Speaker
So they're very cute, very fluffy, very cute, very fluffy. I'm actually really sad. I've never seen one in person, even though I work in Scotland a lot, which is a bummer. Tell you what, I don't think I have. Yeah. What the heck we should go. We should go specifically to find a Highland cow and bring it back with us. And you can take it like for the first six months of the year and I'll take it for like the second six months of the year.
00:18:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah, we'll have we'll have this pastoral thing going. So when I've got this sort of in the south, you walk it up the Yorkshire days. All right, well, while we figure out the logistics of this plan, I think we should take a break and we'll be back with more cute animals. And we are back with archaeo animals episode 64. We're talking cute animals galore. And what's our next animal?
00:19:23
Speaker
It is perhaps the cutest of them all. I'm pretty sure they've also won a prize for the happiest animal. Yes, they have. I saw that. And it is the quokka.
00:19:40
Speaker
Now, we did discuss the quokka, I think, very briefly during our Oceana Zoo Archaeology episode. But they're basically a macropod species, which is a family of marsupials that also include kangaroos and wallabies. And as Simona said, they're the happiest animal because they do have a facial thing where they always look like they're smiling. I think it's referred to as the
00:20:09
Speaker
most selfie-worthy animal because of that.
00:20:14
Speaker
that they do tend to be concentrated on the one island and they're super habituated because, of course, people are now flocking there to take selfies with them. But they don't seem to mind too much, so I guess that's fine, so long as you're respectful. Lapera So like every other animal we're basically going to be talking about, they're usually found as natural deposits in the archaeological record, really useful for environmental concerns, but that's more or less it. However,
00:20:40
Speaker
Kwaka remains found in mid 19th century whaling station sites along the Australian coast have actually shown signs of consumption. So archaeologists who worked on these sites believe that the European settlers were growing bored of their mainly salted mutton rations. They decided to hunt and eat the local Kwaka population.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah, among a lot of the many horrible things that settlers have done, that's pretty bad too.
00:21:19
Speaker
swiftly on. I wish I had a nicer story to tell about the quacko but that was like mainly the one archaeological like case study I could find which really bummed me out as well. Well we gotta balance the good with the bad don't we? True. True. Yeah too much cuteness you know it might send an overload so we need to like ground us with some horrible stories. Just like they probably ground the
00:21:50
Speaker
Oh, moving very swiftly on onto an amphibian that has made it to the list. It's a,
Axolotls: Pet Popularity and Biological Traits
00:21:59
Speaker
well, I guess it must have been increasing in popularity recently. I must have seen memes about it. It's the axolotl. Ambistoma Mexicanum.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I feel like I see a lot of like Instagram videos of axolotls because they're also, I feel like they're gaining popularity as a pet. I mean, people have always kind of had axolotls as pets, but I feel like I see more of them. There's one person who I think has an axolotl and they basically take like a dry erase marker and like draw like hair and like a little bikini on the axolotl, like just on the glass.
00:22:41
Speaker
I was going to say I thought I was drawing on the actual. No, no, no. It's just drawing like, it's kind of funny. Uh, but yeah, I feel like I've seen a lot more axolotl content and that, you know what? They're very, very cute, to be honest. So they're, you know, we just talked about the Quaka being on the happiest animals, but I think axolotl also, because they've just kind of got like a natural, a natural, that's the word I'm trying to use, a natural smile kind of.
00:23:11
Speaker
Yeah, sort of. If you want to hear more about the axolotl from an actual scientific standpoint, we are covered in our amphibian episode. But yes, biologically, it's basically a species of salamander that its uniqueness is that it remains aquatic throughout its life as opposed to many other amphibians sort of move more towards land or towards, you know, a more amphibious lifestyle in the name as they grow up.
00:23:41
Speaker
I think in that episode we also talked a bit about the fact that axolotls, like many other amphibians, can regenerate their limbs and kind of what that would mean on a zoarchological aspect. Could you see that in the zoarchological record? And I think we both decided we don't know because we don't work with axolotls.
00:24:04
Speaker
Actually, because if they reform the limb, does it go through the fusion process again? Yeah, we talked a bit because I think I found a study that looked at how that process works from an osteological perspective. I think you probably could, but between their size and how long it takes for regeneration to happen, identifying that would be potentially difficult.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure whether it goes through the whole like fusion process or the bones are reformed. Already fused as they would an adult. Yeah, I don't know. And so what's the life expectancy? Because you know, bone remodels after a number of years, usually to about 10 years and humans have this choice not to dissimilar in other species as well. So good.
00:24:59
Speaker
No, I'm not getting into that. No, it's fine. Just listen to our old episode where we probably have this exact same conversation. But yeah, and you know, base, as you can tell, maybe by their Latin name, Mexicanum, they are a culturally significant animal in Mexico, as well as more or less being native to Mexico. Zoo archaeological evidence points to a long standing tradition as a food source where they are often either
00:25:26
Speaker
grilled or boiled or roasted and often served with peppers, particularly among the Aztecs. And it's observed that their kind of regenerative properties may have impacted local mythology and folklore as well as its symbolic value in Mexico. Also, apologies in advance because a lot of the archaeological stuff we'll talk about is about eating these animals, which, you know, it's
00:25:51
Speaker
just what happens. But yeah. Well, as we said, the good and the bad. Behold, the axolotl, this cute amphibious creature, boil and mash and put him in a stew. Yeah, I mean, you know, chickens are cute night chickens, so can't judge. Moving on to something that looks sort of like a chicken, but also not quite.
00:26:15
Speaker
So say a duck. Yeah, I was gonna say maybe warm a duck. It had to be here. It's the platypus, everyone, or nidrinkus anatinus, which of course we would have covered in our Oceania episode. Yes. Now, obviously it has very unique characteristics, mainly that it's a mammal that lays eggs. And as
Platypus Discovery: History and Misconceptions
00:26:40
Speaker
Simone was trying to
00:26:43
Speaker
refer to, it does have a flat bill in front which is osteologically made up of these kind of almost pincer-like dentary bones which supports the leathery bill on top. So if you do see what a platypus skull looks like, it's very interesting because of the fact that those two bones that really support the bill do kind of, in my head, they always look like pincers.
00:27:11
Speaker
The fun fact about the platypus is that when a specimen was first sent to England in 1799, it was assumed to be a hoax.
00:27:24
Speaker
My dog is not impressed by the platypus. It's interesting because we have had a previous episode, a very old episode actually, or two episodes actually, about cryptids and fake taxidermy. It was interesting to come across this kind of
00:27:47
Speaker
point about platypuses because it kind of, it's similar to that, except this is obviously real. So yeah, when people first sent a taxidermy platypus to England, people looked at it and were like, this is clearly a mouse or not mouse, like a big rodent with a duckbill sewed onto it.
00:28:12
Speaker
Apparently, this is because Chinese sailors did pranks like this often. I feel like Tristan should probably read out the quote in a very obnoxious accent. Oh, I'm called for. Great. Two seconds. I need to pick up the Trello board. I closed my window. Wow. I know. So professional here. Where's it gone? What's it called again? What's it doing again? I can't remember. Sorry. I'll go get the quote.
00:28:41
Speaker
Segment two. Wow.
00:28:45
Speaker
Do you want this like in kind of like the English sailor saying it? Oh, yeah. Robert Knox, surgeon. Aware of the monstrous impostures which the artful Chinese had so frequently practiced on European adventurers, the scientific community felt inclined to class as a rare production of nature with Eastern mermaids and other works of art. What do you think?
00:29:18
Speaker
Robert Knox. I'd like to think my Chinese ancestors would be proud of me for dunking on the English as much as they clearly did, except I'm not.
00:29:31
Speaker
doing cool bits like they clearly did with pranks, prank taxidermy. That's so cool. I desperately need to know more about this. Like, oh, man, if I had the time and I was like, I guess, randomly getting more fleshy bits of animal rather than the bones I usually get, I'd be all over this.
00:29:57
Speaker
That's so funny. That's such a good bit. Being like, hey, let's send this back to England and say it's, I don't know, something. Tell them it's a platypus. Good jokes. And at least no platypuses were eaten in this episode. They just stuffed.
00:30:18
Speaker
just stuffed and assumed to have been fake. But now to keep it in the same continent, again, we have another cute, a lot of cute animals out of Oceania. Yeah. Again, one of the ones that we have to mention, and it's the koala. Pascolactus cinereus.
00:30:40
Speaker
again if you want to hear more about the koala, we also discuss them in our Oceania episode, surprise surprise, as they are en masse superl, and in fact the only living species from the fast colac to their family.
00:30:55
Speaker
So koalas obviously have a very strong preference for eucalyptus leaves from the eucalyptus trees. I think that's kind of what most of us would think about when we think about koalas, but they are often linked to other species of trees as well, like the acacia, I think is another one.
00:31:15
Speaker
There's a couple other trees that they will hang out in, which sounds like it's not that interesting, but it's actually quite important from an archaeological perspective. So Koala remains and their preferred trees have been really useful in examining how past climate change
00:31:37
Speaker
have impacted the distribution of both the fauna and flora here. So both the distribution of koala bears as well as, I know they're not bears, but you know what I mean, koalas, and also the trees that they love so much. And this is one of those really interesting
00:31:57
Speaker
applications of zero archaeology, which we have also talked about in a previous episode, about how they're able to use data from the past to potentially predict responses to the future. So this data that they've generated from looking at koala remains in the archaeological record have been used to kind of predict maybe what the responses of the population would be to both present and future climate change.
00:32:24
Speaker
Unsurprisingly, probably wouldn't be great. But, you know, good to know. Yeah, we covered that in a case study for the Oceania episode. So again, if you're interested, please go back to that. And actually, if not, you know, take it up a notch and go to the entire mini series that we've done where we cover sort of various regions of the world and the zoo archaeology is within. So treat yourself.
00:32:50
Speaker
So for something a bit different, we're gonna talk about an animal that I'm not sure we've actually talked about. Potentially in passing a few times. Yeah, but like, it's not one of those animals that we really would have dedicated a whole episode to. No, again, I feel like it's one that we may have covered sort of in the North America episode. Maybe, yeah. Perhaps in one of its iterations, so to speak.
00:33:20
Speaker
It's a beaver. Castor species. So as Simona kind of implied, there are two main, at least existing species. You can go for it. The North American beaver, Castor canadensis, and the Eurasian beaver, Castor fever.
00:33:44
Speaker
So it's the second largest species of rodent after the capybara, of course. And obviously, they're probably most interesting anatomical feature besides their massive, massive incisors that they share with a lot of their other rodent family members. But the other thing is probably their tail.
00:34:08
Speaker
which is actually made of flattened caudal vertebrae, which is something for some reason I've literally never thought about, given that they are quite flat, unlike a lot of other animal tails, which are more, you know, three-dimensional, I guess. And they're covered with a hairless leathery outside, and they mainly store fat inside, which they can draw upon if they need to for, you know, extra energy.
00:34:38
Speaker
just one species that you don't particularly think of, because while I think in the mainland, it is still so a relatively healthy species number wise, I think it is used, was and still used for sustenance or some of the Baltic countries. They are turbo endangered in Britain.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah, they were found here a plenty in the past. As always, we've done a brilliant job of obliterating anything that moves. So I think there's a few sort of pops populations in Scotland and a few of the places where they've been introduced, but they're not doing too great. Were they like, well, I feel like they were like recently reintroduced to some areas or am I making that up? Potentially, I think a few locations in Scotland.
00:35:26
Speaker
They're definitely one of those species that are always on the like, let's reintroduce them list though, for sure.
00:35:34
Speaker
Well, they belong here and they're very useful. Yeah, and archaeologically, they're also really useful as they're a taphonomic agent. So obviously, they make burrows, which can cause a lot of post-depositional sedimentary activity. And obviously, they can create eco-facts through gnawing wooden materials.
00:35:58
Speaker
And they're also found in the archaeological record in kind of hunting contexts as well. They're very much desired for their pelts, but also Castor, is it Castorium? Did I say it? I should have pronounced that. I think so. Castorium. Castorium, which is used for perfume and medicine as flavoring. And it's probably best to not think about where it's from, which is their caster sex, which is like
00:36:29
Speaker
Like next to their urethra, I think. Oh, lovely perfume. Yes. And food flavoring. Yum, yum. And to really round off this great, like, interesting fact about them, they poop in the water. Not only do they poop in the water, because of what they, you know, chew on, their poop often just creates balls of sawdust.
00:37:00
Speaker
It's not something I've ever thought about in my life, and I'm sure it's not something you've ever thought about in your life, but now we all collectively know about this. I'm not going to speak for yourself. You used to keep me up at night. I wake up three o'clock in the morning. It's like, but how to be this poo?
00:37:16
Speaker
What does the poo look like? What's the ratio? And now I know sawdust. The fact that it's also specified as like balls of sawdust. So now it's like, if you ever come across a ball of sawdust and you're like, oh, that's interesting, and you go to lean and pick it up, have a second thought.
00:37:35
Speaker
You may not know where that's from, but now you actually kind of know where that's from. So while you reassess the ball of sawdust that you found in your pond in the garden, we'll take a break. It is weird. I've never really thought about that. And we are back with episode 64 of Archaeo Animals. We're looking at the cutest animals ever. And we're going to start off with our next animal, Tristan, if you can.
00:38:04
Speaker
penguins. It's a reference for five people, I guess. The Graham Norton show. That's more than five people. That's like 10 people. We have listeners from different countries, you know. Oh, if you don't get the reference, Benedict Cumberbatch actor cannot pronounce penguins properly. So it says penguins and the BBC thought to put him on a
00:38:33
Speaker
like a nature documentary about penguins and have him kind of try and work his way through that. I think that they knew what they were doing. Sorry. Back to the show, ladies.
00:38:49
Speaker
Anyway, they were talked about briefly in the Antarctica episode. Yes, we did
Penguins: Anatomical Surprises
00:38:55
Speaker
do an episode on the zoo archaeology of Antarctica. We talked about it for an hour. You should go listen to it. It was a lot of work, but I think it was very interesting. And also penguins are my favorite animal. And I was the person who wrote these show notes. So we are going to talk about penguins, whether you like it or not. I think they're cute. Just saying.
00:39:16
Speaker
That's worth noting, even though they're mainly associated with places like Antarctica, they're also found in Australia, New Zealand and South America. Yeah, that's one of those things you kind of, I feel like, is really easy to forget. They are not just Antarctica, they're a lot of more temperate places. So the largest species is the Emperor Penguin.
00:39:41
Speaker
And the smallest is the blue penguin. And it's also called the fairy penguin, and that is so cute. I love it. Now, unfortunately, we are going to talk about people eating them. Because, archaeologically, again, you know,
00:40:04
Speaker
Penguins are just two birds, right? So they have been heavily used in past subsistence, particularly throughout the Holocene. And they're basically found in these archaeological contexts. They actually make up 80% of the total bird biomass in Southern oceans. And perhaps more importantly, if you've never seen what a penguin skeleton looks like, please look it up because you will be shocked to look at that neck.
00:40:30
Speaker
If you look up this penguin skeleton, it's like all vertebra and then like two big legs. And because penguins are just kind of like, you know, like big blobs, you don't really think about them squarely. And then you look up a skeleton, you're like, oh, hashtag big chunky necks. Big chunky necks. Yeah. It's like one of those things where it's like, it makes sense, right? But it's a bit weird.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah. They're so cute, though. They do like a penguin. Actually, baby penguins. Yeah. Oh, and they hold them between their feet. It's the cutest thing in the world. The baby Emperor penguins that are kind of sort of gray and fluffy like. Oh, they're so cute.
00:41:18
Speaker
Oh man, there's a comedian that I knew really liked penguins and I like hung out with him after a show and he showed me he had this huge tattoo in his arm of just a penguin and he always I always think about how he refers to penguins when I think about penguins which he's like they're just wiener dogs that are walking on two legs and he's right they are wiener dogs are walking on two legs anyway kind of in the
00:41:47
Speaker
A bit of a similar... Yeah, just in a much bigger wiener dog with no legs. Yeah. Beluga whales. Delfinaptorus locus. Now, I don't know if you thought this was a cute animal. This is like an animal you think of when you think of cute animals, but I think beluga whales are really cute. Beluga whales are cute. They're majestic. Yeah, and also, weirdly enough, what I just realized right now is...
00:42:15
Speaker
penguins and beluga whales put right next to each other. These are two things that I have really strong memories writing reports about in grade school. So this might be my subconscious really talking to me. Like I've really internalized these two animals as cute animals from a young age. I mean, that's very cute they are. Even the big bump on their head is cute.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, so, you know, we have talked about whales in various episodes. They're obviously incredibly important elements of coastal life. We have loads of really interesting archaeological
00:42:58
Speaker
context for whales, particularly here in the UK. But I really want to talk about blue whales because they're so cute. I mean, as Simona just mentioned, they have that big bump on their head. And it's so cute that they even have a cute name. It's literally called a melon. It's called a melon.
00:43:23
Speaker
Beluga melon. Beluga melon. So it's mainly fatty tissue and it's technically an organ that helps with echolocation like even to the point that it even slightly changes shape based on the sounds being made and again that's just that's so cute. So now to the bit where they eat them. Yeah a bit but you know it's um
00:43:50
Speaker
a really interesting element. Because whales are really interesting on archaeological perspective because of the fact that they're not only consumption, like fluid resources, but they're also material resources as well. Obviously, we have loads of really interesting artifacts made from whale bone, which actually I always found really interesting and amazing to look at.
00:44:19
Speaker
But more specifically, indigenous populations in the Arctic have utilized beluga whales for both subsistence as well as tool making. Now, unfortunately for belugas, they can get stuck quite close to shore when temperatures quickly drop and that causes ice to form. So them, along with narwhals,
00:44:43
Speaker
can often be really accessible for hunting and again for being used for tool making. So we that tends to make very fragmented bone assemblages but fortunately for us zooms or zoology by mass spectrometry which we have talked a lot about in our podcast episodes. They've made that quite easy
00:45:09
Speaker
for identification purposes, which is great. Next up, we're keeping the sea theme going. We're moving on to sea otters, Enidra Lutris, which is technically one of the smallest marine mammals, but also mustard-wise, it's actually the heaviest.
00:45:31
Speaker
which I've never really thought about them being muscle aids, but they are. Yeah. I mean, sea otters are an example of a keystone species, which is, I mean, we've mentioned this in the past, but just a rate-a-rate, it's a species with a significant influence on the wider environment that doesn't necessarily correlate with the size of its population. So that's
Sea Otters in Archaeology and Indigenous Cultures
00:45:52
Speaker
when it comes in very useful paleo-environmental reconstruction.
00:45:57
Speaker
So traditionally sea otters have been used for both pelts and as food by indigenous people, including the Tlingit people in Alaska and Canada. And one of the really interesting things about zoo archaeological work with sea otters and kind of one of the reasons why I wanted to mention them in this episode, although they are so cute. And I don't know if you've seen these videos, Simona, of when they hold hands.
00:46:24
Speaker
in the water if they don't float away. That's like the cutest thing in the world. Oh, to be a little sea otter getting their hands held in the water. I'm in a really good place mentally, guys. It's fine.
00:46:38
Speaker
Have you gone to your capybara place? I've gone to my capybara place and then in there I've gone into my sea otter place. It's like a multiple mine palaces of cuteness. Imagine a sea otter holding a capybara by the hand.
00:46:54
Speaker
Oh, my heart's gonna stop. I'm just gonna die in the middle of this podcast. Crap and bar is gonna need like a buoyancy aid or something. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. We can get we can get a life preserver on them. But yeah, going back to kind of a more serious topic. There's been some really interesting zirchological work.
00:47:12
Speaker
even, you can even refer to it as kind of decolonial zoarchaeological work that's been done in collaboration with Tlingit people, which has shown that what we traditionally use as cut mark typologies in zoarchaeology are actually not useful in investigating butchery for sea otters. So, you know, obviously we have
00:47:34
Speaker
cut marks that we associate with book tree that is usually useful for most animals, particularly domestic animals, but you can't really apply those to sea otters. So, zoarchaeologists have taken kind of
00:47:50
Speaker
modern day process sea otters and compare them to archaeological ones to really get an idea of what we might be missing as far as having typologies. And also it's been able to showcase the importance of pelt.
00:48:07
Speaker
for our Tlingit ancestors when it came to utilizing sea otters. So it's a really cool study, to be honest, and something that, again, I don't think most of us would think about. So that's why it's really important to have kind of Indigenous worldviews as part of our archaeological interpretation. And also like bringing these communities on board for what is actually their heritage. Exactly. You know, all good in my book. And all sea otters are cute.
00:48:35
Speaker
We're getting out of the ocean though, don't worry. We're getting out of the water. We're getting quite far out of the water. We're getting bigger of that as well, because the next one is giant pandas. So we have discussed them a little bit in our episode on Asian archaeology, which is obvious because they're kind of the icon for modern day China.
Giant Panda: Modern Icon and Historical Significance
00:49:00
Speaker
But weirdly enough, it's not really
00:49:02
Speaker
an animal that's had a long history of iconography, you actually can't really find a long-standing historical tradition of the panda being utilized as an icon for China or even for imperial power or anything. It's just been a more recent invention. I guess maybe as the numbers dwindled. Yeah.
00:49:34
Speaker
possibly. So there is one
00:49:39
Speaker
historical instance of its significance, which is the Empress Dowager Bowe, who lived during the Han Dynasty, allegedly had a pet panda in her garden, which I would love that to be me, but it's not. So this is up for debate as, you know, we don't really have that much evidence to go and support this. But when archaeologists did find her tomb complex, they actually found a panda skull in it, which is really interesting.
00:50:09
Speaker
She might have also just like pandas, who knows? Yes. And to keep it in the panda realm. Well, it's still like, same sort of what genus ish, because we go from Aeluropoda to Aelurus species, close enough, probably. It's the red panda. So I mean, like, it's not actually that closely related to the giant panda, although they do have one thing in common. They're both super cute.
00:50:39
Speaker
But they they do are actually closer to raccoons. More on that later. There's actually two species of red panda, the Himalayan red panda, Aylurus fulgens, and the Chinese red panda, Aylurus theani. And they are really cute. I mean, they're one of those things where it's like you see videos of them and you're kind of like, that could be like a person in a costume. They're just so cute. And like, I don't know,
00:51:08
Speaker
I guess because their face is so round. Yeah, my face is round. I could be a red panda. It can be whatever you wish to be. Oh, thank you, Simona. Archaeo animals also comes with affirmations.
00:51:29
Speaker
Like the giant panda, it's difficult to find historical documents to connect it to older folklore cultural traditions. However, it's still culturally significant for its pelt and as medicinal resources in parts of Tibet. To make our purpose as a zookeology podcast a bit more difficult,
00:51:53
Speaker
There's actually no fossils for the living species that have been identified, at least as of this recording. And older fossils originally associated with the genus have now been identified as something else. So we really don't know too much about the red panda in the past. Just the one day it appeared. Yeah.
00:52:18
Speaker
And he was here. And thank God. So more recent work has been done trying to kind of locate signifiers for the species, which would be useful in kind of establishing a baseline to look at paleo-environmental data. And of course, because we can't be cute without being a little gross, that's mainly being done through their poop. It's a very poop-heavy episode, actually.
00:52:47
Speaker
more so than usual. We've only mentioned it twice. But that's more than usual. Which is zero, hopefully. Analyzing their SCAT allows to identify specific vegetation that's linked to the species, as well as any seasonal variations and stabilised baselines to compare extinct species with. Hopefully that
00:53:16
Speaker
something interesting. Yeah, we'll see. To round off our panda run, we have one final panda to talk about to end our episode as well. And it's the trash panda, aka raccoons.
Raccoons: Cultural Role and Unique Features
00:53:36
Speaker
So weirdly enough, despite many archaeologists finding kinship with the trash panda due to our sheer love of rummaging through garbage, I don't think we've actually talked about raccoons?
00:53:49
Speaker
just because they're super cute and like in their hands they got grabby hands so like when they're looking for something in the water and they just put their hands like they got grabby hands i love them uh so one of the reasons why i think we haven't really talked about it is because or at least one of the things the times we may have talked about it is because
00:54:11
Speaker
Around the time I realized that we had Squirrels in the UK, which happened on this podcast. I'm not really sure what episode that was, but I'm sure you can find it. It was quite early on, but I have never forgotten that. Of course. I'm sure the listeners have not forgotten that. It also took me a long time to realize that there weren't raccoons in the UK.
00:54:36
Speaker
No, at least not except for the odd ones that probably kept us pets somewhere. I think I remember, I think we discussed it in the episode where we mentioned raccoons the first time round, but it was in the news a few years back, where some people found a raccoon in the front room, because they heard a noise downstairs and it was a burglar. So they came downstairs to find a raccoon in England.
00:55:00
Speaker
which was most puzzling. I'm not sure what happened to the raccoon if he did belong to someone, but the article wasn't clear. But there you go, just random raccoon in your living room.
00:55:10
Speaker
But you can understand why they're so cute. Like grabbing all your pots and pans. So yeah, even though we don't have raccoons in the UK, raccoon pelts were actually really commonly exported to the United Kingdom. Sometimes to even be exported further to Eastern Europe where raccoon pelts were really sought after for hats.
00:55:35
Speaker
as well as a kind of a lighter version of a fur coat. Obviously this was part of the kind of trade with the newly instated colonies in the United States.
00:55:49
Speaker
And raccoon pelts as well were often used in Scottish menswear in the highlands, such as the sporron, or the bit of the kilt, sort of with the fluffy bit, which was often used as a substitute for seal skin, as is the case for some caps worn in the British military. And we have to mention before we end this episode, the other very important thing about raccoons, and that is the baculum.
00:56:19
Speaker
It's often used as a toothpick in parts of the southern United States, often referred to as a Texas toothpick.
00:56:30
Speaker
Indigenous people have used them in the past to pack pipes, and moonshiners still use the baculum, particularly the raccoon baculum, to distill their moonshine. If you go to a roadside attraction in a lot of parts of the south of the United States, you can actually buy raccoon baculum because they're seen as a good luck charm. Now, what are baculum, you may be thinking? We have talked about in this the past, but it is the penis bone.
00:57:02
Speaker
So yeah. So still balancing that out, you know, the cute and gross. Yes. And that's a good way to end the episode, I think. Now, just a reminder, if you haven't caught our last episode for some reason, we have announced that the show is ending.
00:57:22
Speaker
This
Conclusion and Final Episode Details
00:57:23
Speaker
is our second to last episode, and what a great second to last episode to have. But our last episode is coming up, so stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, you can still listen to our entire archive on the Archaeology Podcast Network. Wherever you get your podcasts, it's always nice to still, you know, give us a nice review for all time's sake. And is there anything else, Simona, that you'd like to say?
00:57:50
Speaker
But as usual, any hate mail can go to Tristan. Yeah. Even long after we're gone, just keep sending the hate mail to Tristan. I think it keeps him alive. I think it's really important for him to get that. Great. Thanks. Thanks both of you. All I get is fan mail, you know, saying, Tristan, why do we do more impressions? Tristan, why don't you contribute more? You know, be part of this podcast.
00:58:17
Speaker
Tristan, your jokes are so funny.
00:58:22
Speaker
Okay, okay. Turn the knife a little bit more. Can we just get a bonus episode of Tristan doing puns? Oh, I don't know. It doesn't really work. Like my humour works. I'm like a parasite, you know, my own humour works. But we should mention that the final episode that we're doing will have a special treat for everybody. We are going to be working on
00:58:52
Speaker
a bingo card. Aren't we? Yes. And Tristan's gonna make that. Tristan is gonna make it. So in anticipation of the final episode, yeah, just think about the kind of things that you're used to hearing on here. And let's see if we can play bingo. Otherwise we'll see you on our final episode, folks.
00:59:20
Speaker
Goodbye. Bye. Thank you for listening to RQ animals. Please subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you get your podcast from. You can find us on Twitter at RQ animals. Also, the views expressed on the podcast are those of ourselves, the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent those of our institutions, employers, and the RQOG podcast network. Thanks for listening.
00:59:52
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.