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On Frog-Toads and Other Amphibian Dilemmas - Ep 53
1.6k Plays2 years ago
In this episode of ArchaeoAnimals, take a journey into the world of amphibians with us. Witness the latest of Alex’s hot archaeology takes, discover the unbelievable cuteness of the axolotl and why amphibian remains are so crucial to the reconstruction of past environments.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/53
Links and Sources
- https://bna-naturalists.org/id-guide-british-amphibians/
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/complete-axolotl-genome-could-reveal-secret-regenerating-tissues-180971335/
- Buckley, M., & Cheylan, M. (2020). Collagen fingerprinting for the species identification of archaeological amphibian remains. Boreas, 49(4), 709-717.
- Dittrich, C., & Götting-Martin, E. (2021). ‘Green Frog in the Water’. A Herpetological Approach to the Magico-Medical Use of Frogs and Frog-Amulets in Mesopotamia. In Bridging the Gap: Disciplines, Times, and Spaces in Dialogue. Archaeopress Publishing Ltd.
- O'Connor, T. (2008) The Archaeology of Animal Bones. Texas A&M University Press.
- Porcasi, J. F. (2010). Archaeological evidence for dietary use of bigfoot leopard frog (Lithobates megapoda) in postclassic and colonial central Mexico. Culture & Agriculture. 32 (1): 42–48.
- Yan, F. et al. (2018). The Chinese giant salamander exemplifies the hidden extinction of cryptic species. Current Biology, 28(10), R590-R592.
Contact
- Alex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitz
- Simona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLady
- Alex’s Blog: Animal Archaeology
- Music "Coconut - (dyalla remix)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Archaeo Animals Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Archaeo Animals, the podcast for all of our zoarchaeology. And with you, as always, is me, Sibana Falanga. And me, Alex Fitzpatrick. Right. I mean, for today's episode, we will be journeying to a place that many archaeologists, mostly Alex. Me, yes.
00:00:35
Speaker
Many others too, here to go to some the land of amphibians.
Why are Amphibians Overlooked in Archaeology?
00:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, because like, let's be real, unless you're a really specialized archeologist, or you're like working in a really specific context with very specific research questions, I think most of us are just going to be happy to identify them as OHITK. Those are amphibian bones, and then move on to the quote unquote, cooler, quote unquote, more important stuff. Oh, dishing the mouse so early.
00:01:17
Speaker
Okay, hot take by Alex, less just over a minute in. Excellent. I said quote unquote. So I'm not really saying myself, that's my own opinion. But that's like the vibe, you know. So she upsets the fish, then the frogs.
00:01:37
Speaker
There's not like there's much difference between the two, let's be real. We've had it compared to fish amphibians walk in the park, but to be fair, the amphibian bones tend to be quite distinctive in the way that, yes, easy enough to tell that they're amphibian.
Native Amphibians of Britain
00:01:52
Speaker
Identify the species.
00:01:54
Speaker
There's going to be a lot of like a frog slash toad. I'm sure if any of the listeners will remember the sheep goat that we keep mentioning in various episodes on domesticates. It's very much the case for frog slash toad. So, you know, as we like to always mention, Simone and I are based in the UK. So we have a very specific kind of perspective.
00:02:17
Speaker
And for a British Sioux archaeologist, it's kind of a game of numbers anyway, when it comes to caring about amphibian bones, because Britain actually has seven native species of amphibian. So there's the natterjack toad. Epidalia calamita. I'm guessing I'm doing the species name here. The common toad. Bufo, Bufo.
00:02:46
Speaker
Is that supposed to be the noise they make? Possibly. I thought you paused so that you could get ready to do a really good tone impression. No, no, I leave those for Tristan. Ribbit, ribbit. No, it's boofo, boofo. We just said this. Boofo, boofo. We just said it. We tee you up. Honestly, is this all I'm here for is to say boofo, boofo on cue.
00:03:09
Speaker
I'm not a performing toad. You are a buffoon. Oh, you're apparently Java as
Amphibians' Role in Archaeology
00:03:17
Speaker
well. Amazing. The other amphibians. Yeah, that would have the common frog.
00:03:26
Speaker
The poor frog, Pelophilax le son, le sonne, the great crescent nude, Triturus cresatus, the smooth nude, Lissothriton vulgaris, and the palmate nude, Lissothriton el veticus. Although just a quick aside, I didn't look up bufo, bufo, and I mean, it is the Latin for toad. I cannot comment whether it's animatopoeic. I think it is. If any of you know, please let us know.
00:03:56
Speaker
I mean, in Britain, we do have these seven native species of amphibian. However, really, the bulk of what you get archaeologically are the common frog and the common toad. Usually, if you can't tell between the two, it's a frog slash toad.
00:04:12
Speaker
Realistically. Yeah. And again, realistically, if you are a zoo archaeologist or even an archaeologist stuck with doing your animal bones fine report, you're really going to only need to know as far as is it an amphibian for the most part. That being said, of course, we should give credit to amphibian remains when it's due.
00:04:37
Speaker
They can actually tell us a lot about past environments. And of course, depending on where you're working in, they actually may have additional information about culture or the economy as, you know, in various places, amphibians have a very specific cultural or economic value.
00:04:56
Speaker
Indeed, so they actually they are quite crucial part of paleo environmental reconstruction, which we will cover in the near future.
Amphibians in Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction
00:05:04
Speaker
But we thought, again, as a sort of another mini series of sorts, but I sort of look at all the various species and like, animal orders that you'd mainly use for a paleo environmental reconstruction, as far as zoo archaeology is concerned, the teeny tiny bitty bits,
00:05:21
Speaker
I'm not sure if you want to include mollusks into that. No, that's not to include mollusks. No, no, no, I'm putting my foot down.
00:05:30
Speaker
We will not do mollusks. Well, we probably will when we run out of things to talk about. But for now, we won't be doing mollusks because we're doing amphibians. And they've got bones. They do. Quick recap, amphibians. They are members of the taxonomic class amphibia and are vertebrates who are also ectothermic. That is cold-blooded.
00:05:54
Speaker
Unlike mammals, amphibians are herbivorous, that is, they lay eggs, but more specifically, they like to lay them in water, as you do, when then they, young, are hatched as aquatic larvae with gills and eventually developed into sort of fully fledged land-dwelling tetrapods as adults with lungs and everything.
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah, so they're a really interesting type of animal, specifically for zoarchaeologists, where, you know, our whole thing is looking at animal bones because they go through such a huge transformation during their lifetimes. So, you know, skeleton wise, the amphibian larva, which are basically tadpoles, they start out with a more cartilaginous kind of skeleton before it eventually ossifies into the skeleton that we expect from vertebrates.
Amphibian Lifecycles and Personal Stories
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually like a very nice the witness as well because I don't know who amongst you have access to a pond or have a pond in the gardens chances are like frogs will readily sort of populate it so I got to witness it myself because I have frogs in my garden I can see all the little
00:06:59
Speaker
eggs and then the tadpoles and then slowly, you know, they start getting a tail and the limbs start coming out and turn into little froglets. So it's quite nice. That or I have no hobbies, you know. I thought you were going to say maybe, I know this is something they do in the UK as someone who has worked in the school system here, and obviously I'm from America, but we've like had tadpoles in our classrooms. Like, did you get, did you do that at all?
00:07:28
Speaker
I know we never did that in school. I think they do it in Britain though. I think it is a thing. They do, yeah. Yeah, as somebody who went to British school, yeah, I think, I think it was in my second, like the secondary school, like I don't remember it being primary school. So I know of it happening, but I don't even remember it happening in one of my classes. So I know of it. So that's the best I can give you.
00:07:54
Speaker
We did in like fourth grade, I think. So how old are you? Like nine. And some kids got to take home. I think like some kids got to take home the extras because my neighbor took home like a whole box of tadpoles. And of course, they all
Challenges in Identifying Amphibian Bones
00:08:12
Speaker
died horrifically because why would you trust a nine year old to take care of frogs? But I mean, I guess it's kind of fun. I don't know. We also kept butterflies. It's a whole thing.
00:08:24
Speaker
American schools, they are.
00:08:27
Speaker
Fascinating. Anyway, adult amphibian skeletons, extremely weird, to be honest. Characteristic, yes, but weird, because even though they may be kind of, you can kind of tell it's an amphibian bone, if you're just kind of looking at it really fast, if you have it very fragmented or just random bits and pieces here and there, because of the size and the fact that they are quite hollow, it's pretty easy to mistake them for bird bone.
00:08:55
Speaker
at least if you're me and you kind of just got a tiny brain to deal with this kind of stuff. And so because I guess the way to differentiate say mammalian bones from bird bones is that bird bones also look weird. And you have amphibian bones that look weird, but a different type of weird.
00:09:14
Speaker
I guess amphibians have their own sort of like giveaways. I mean, like the vertical bread tend to be quite variable between species. They tend to be quite difficult to differentiate, you know, whether it's cordal versus thoracic or pre-cordal, etc. But for Alex's delight, frogs don't have ribs.
00:09:32
Speaker
which I didn't know, which may be ridiculous to not know as a 29 year old with a PhD, but I just never really thought about it until we started doing the episode notes for this episode. And then I was like, oh my gosh, they don't have ribs. What? I'm smart. I'm really smart, guys. That's not the most surprising thing you've discovered, you know, ever since we broke it. Okay, listen.
00:09:58
Speaker
This anti-immigrant rhetoric against people who don't notice squirrels needs to stop. Was it raccoons you thought were here? Because we don't have raccoons. I mean, there was probably like a year when I was like, where are all the raccoons? But I got over it.
00:10:17
Speaker
No, no, no room for growth on this podcast. Sometimes some people just don't notice squirrels. There are dozens of us. But I guess few sort of giveaways that scream amphibian personally, um, the radio owner and the tibia fibula think that the dead giveaway for amphibians, cause they just look so different from anything
Amphibians' Environmental Insights
00:10:40
Speaker
else. And now like they look.
00:10:43
Speaker
nothing like the radius and the ulna, the tibia fibula for mammals. But they're fused together and it's almost like this double barrel bone. That's the best way I can explain it. It's a double barrel bone. The radial ulna, of course, will be squatter, slightly shorter. The tibia fibula will be a little bit more elongated. The cranial bones I'm not going to get into, but you'll have to see them.
00:11:13
Speaker
That's basically what their cranium looks like. It looks like a little D shape. That is, if you find small parts of various cranial bones and those are a treat. In terms of things, a scream amphibian, and again, I'm talking mainly about frogs and toads, because those are the ones that you mostly tend to find in British archaeology, the femur kind of looks like a clavicle.
00:11:35
Speaker
got that slight sort of S shape to it, but I think that the ilium sort of is quite characteristic in frogs and toads where you get the acetabulum, so that's the articulation sort of with the femoral head. And then there's like just a process that comes straight out, so again it looks nothing like a mammalian pelvis, but that's again like a dead giveaway from fibion and then sort of a common frog,
00:12:01
Speaker
the process as kind of a crest to it while in toad, it doesn't. It's the best I can do to illustrate something via sound. Yeah, I mean, you know, it doesn't help that they're just weird looking, to be completely honest. And, you know, it's something that I've never, like I said, never really thought about because of where we work and the kind of things you put emphasis on when it comes to what you're doing. You know, if you're working on a site that's got loads of different species,
00:12:30
Speaker
no offence to amphibians, but they're usually kind of last in line when it comes to what I care about the most. Merle Yeah, I guess if you're reporting on it, you look at all of the species all the same being mammalian fish, amphibian, still gonna get your best. Sarah But you know, it's at least useful to know what they look like.
00:12:54
Speaker
for the most part. But I feel like even it's not like we have that many comparative species. And I think that's kind of the case for across the board when it comes to having comparative material to use for identifications. Obviously, you can get loads of domesticates and whatnot. But especially in certain places in the world, a lot of amphibians are kind of endangered or in
00:13:20
Speaker
risk of being endangered.
The Chinese Giant Salamander and Conservation
00:13:21
Speaker
So it's even more difficult to kind of get that comparative material. Because that includes a fair few of the amphibians here. Yeah, like you have to mainly rely on manuals. And of course, there's only so far manual goals because the illustration while very helpful and brilliant,
00:13:36
Speaker
doesn't always substitute the comparative material. It's tough. I mean, that's the moral of today's episode. It's tough. But I think we're going to take a break and then when we come back, we will talk a bit about some amphibians around the world and why they're so weird and what we can do with them zooarchologically.
00:14:01
Speaker
And we are back with archaeo-animals. And today we're talking about the zorchology of amphibians, frogs, toads, all that fun, weird stuff that I don't really know that much about. So the first part, we talked a bit about what amphibians broadly are and what makes their bones, for lack of a better word, so peculiar. But what about specific species? So kind of...
00:14:27
Speaker
It's not really case studies, but I guess they kind of are. Let's just take a quick look through some amphibians of note from around the world. And I feel like the best way to start that off is to go with one of the biggest ones, the Chinese giant salamander.
Axolotls: Regeneration and Culture
00:14:47
Speaker
So yeah, one of the largest amphibians in the world and kind of ties into what we're saying in the last part of last part, that it's unfortunately an endangered species due to the fact that there's a lot of habitat loss and exploitation as it's often used not only as a food source, but also as part of traditional Chinese medicine. And that also just reminded me, I feel like with amphibians in particular, they more
00:15:17
Speaker
More likely than a lot of other species or taxa get hit with habitat loss, more so just because of the places they usually end up living in. I guess the thing with amphibians, again, such sort of niche environments that they like to live in, which incidentally is also why they're so great for paleo-environmental reconstruction.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah, so unfortunately that ends up putting them on endangered species lists more so than maybe other types of animals. So yeah, obviously conservation is quite important for amphibians, but particularly for the Chinese giant salamander. Sorry, that name is a mouthful.
00:16:00
Speaker
What's really particularly interesting about the Chinese giant salamander is that it's actually considered to be a living fossil, which I don't even know if we've really talked about living fossils on this podcast. Technically, it's not really zoo archaeology, but I feel like a cow. I guess my gut reaction is, that's not very nice, calling someone a living fossil.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, but it's an ecologically really important thing, isn't it? So a living fossil is basically a living member of a tax zone that's been existent for an extremely long time.
00:16:36
Speaker
extremely long time, thousands and thousands and millions of years. And yet they still retain much of their characteristics. So they haven't really evolved or changed that much. So for example, coelacanths, I think are probably the most well known living fossil as a. And so, yeah, the Chinese giant salamander is considered one of these living fossils, particularly of the family
00:17:14
Speaker
Okay, the next one is also a metaphor, is the axolotl.
00:17:20
Speaker
Bistoma Mexicanum, okay it wasn't too bad, which is a salamander that is unique in the fact that it remains aquatic rather than going through the sort of metamorphosis so to speak that other amphibians go through. The name axolotl actually comes from the deity axolotl who was worshipped during the Aztec Empire where axolotls, oh is that becoming a drinking game now,
00:17:44
Speaker
where like under the Aztec Empire, these creatures were commonly eaten and still were eaten today.
Fossilization Difficulties of Amphibians
00:17:52
Speaker
One of the most interesting characteristics I guess of axolotls from an archaeological perspective is the fact that it is able to regenerate various body parts whether it be limbs, tails, spinal cord, even eyes and parts of the brain. She's a
00:18:09
Speaker
I think. It's interesting because, again, amphibians are a very funny taxa, I guess, really, in that they have these unique characteristics. And again, because, you know, I haven't really worked with them per se. This is archeologically. There's all these kind of weird characteristics that I do not even sure really show up in this archeological record. So before we were talking about, you know, this process of ossification
00:18:37
Speaker
And, you know, how the bones go from being cartilaginous in most amphibians to becoming ossified and kind of, you know, the proper bones that we see in vertebrates. And, you know, I didn't really look, but I'm not sure if there's really been able to find evidence of, say, like tadpoles in the zoarchological record. I don't think they'd survive very well unless the conditions were very specific.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, because I guess you get you get a very anaerobic environment and like waterlogged samples. It's Yeah, I mean, I guess we have stories of a lot of very strange things surviving. I mean, we had a few episodes ago, we talked about that was it a fish, fossilized fish that the heart was still fossilized, and they were able to recover it. Oh, well, that's
00:19:31
Speaker
And this is like ages ago, folks. But, you know, there's, our galaxy is funny. There is, if you have that like one, less than 1% chance of the environment being just so, you'd be surprised at the things that can actually survive. So I guess, I mean, I'm trying to think about cartilage and whether or not that
00:19:57
Speaker
something cartilaginous could survive. Not easily, but I guess maybe if it started to ossify because it's not quite the same. But you know, sometimes in cattle and halls, you do get some of the ossified sort of cartilage in the ribs. And you do get that occasionally.
00:20:15
Speaker
It's funny. It's weird. And so the thing about the axolotl is that it goes through a very similar process. So if a limb was cut off for some reason or a tail, the way that they regenerate these body parts, at least the
00:20:32
Speaker
things like limbs and tails that have bone is that it does a very similar process where, you know, I believe it goes, it develops through the osteoblasts and slowly but surely ossifies into a new
00:20:48
Speaker
body part. I tried reading this to kind of be able to explain it and then realize it was extremely complicated. And it was probably easier just to say they regenerate, because that is ultimately what they
Cultural Significance of Amphibians in History
00:20:59
Speaker
do. But I guess realistically, you could potentially find an axolotl remains that were maybe partially regenerated. Merle Yeah, I guess like, I mean, not quite limbs, but you have like some lizards that can regenerate tails.
00:21:17
Speaker
I don't think they can regrow lost limbs compared to our friend the Axolotl. Axolotl? You know what's funny about the Axolotl? What? It is super cute. So if anyone listening doesn't know what an Axolotl looks like, please look it up. She looks like a Pokémon or something. The Axolotl used to be a character in Animal Crossing.
00:21:44
Speaker
Of course. It's funny that you say it's funny because he was a comedian whose name now escapes me, which makes me feel bad because I thought he was funny. I'm so sorry. Forgive me, whoever you are. Forgive me, Animal Crossing fans. I'm not a true fan, despite sinking like 900 hours into that game.
00:22:06
Speaker
But yeah, they're very cute. I think they're adorable. And I wish we lived in a place where we came across axolotls as archeologically, because that would be cool. Basically, it kind of looks like a a newt, but it's pale pink, so like a naked newt. And it's got some sort of headgear going like fluffy headgear. And the way that their their mouths are set, it looks like they're smiling all the time. Just like then the doggly eyes.
00:22:35
Speaker
Oh, they're so cute. They are really cute. We should do an episode where it's just these archeology of cute things. Yeah. I mean, if anyone wants to hear that, please write to us, tweet to us. We'll get going. Tweet at us. Send a carrier pigeon. Let us know because again, we will run out of episode ideas at some point. I mean, it's only been what, nearly five years now.
00:23:05
Speaker
We're going to make it to 10. Anyway, not moving that far from the home of the axolotl, another amphibian from Mexico is the Bigfoot leopard frog.
00:23:22
Speaker
Also known as the Bigfooted leopard frog. So, got variety there. And I guess the theme for this section has been like big boys, because the Bigfoot leopard frog, based on its name, you could probably guess, they are massive frogs. They are so massive that a single frog can provide 300 grams of flesh.
00:23:46
Speaker
which is extremely important as these frogs have historically been used as subsistence. So it's a big, big chunky boy. Fucking big boy.
00:23:59
Speaker
Hecking big boy. And it's actually quite interesting though. So zookeological research that has been undertaken at the site of Laguna de Magdalena in Jalisco, Mexico has revealed the importance of these frogs in the diets of the indigenous peoples during both the pre-Hispanic and the colonial occupations of this site.
00:24:25
Speaker
And it seems like the exploitation of these frogs was at its most intensive during the latter periods, during the colonial occupation. And, you know, we talk a lot about how you kind of interpret things as archaeology. So it probably doesn't come as a surprise to know that this was mostly interpreted due to the predominance of high limb bones.
00:24:48
Speaker
as it was likely that these were the part of the frog that was the most choice for cuisine. And similarly, that's kind of how frogs are still eating today. And another kind of evidence that they've used to have this interpretation of the importance of the frog is that
00:25:09
Speaker
The frog seems to be used a lot in mortuary
Excavation Strategies for Amphibian Remains
00:25:14
Speaker
figures and iconography and other kinds of material culture, which is always really important to know. Simona, have you ever eaten frogs? No.
00:25:26
Speaker
I mean, you're not missing much. I've never really found them that exciting, although I might have just had really not well-prepared frogs. I don't know, because I seem to have heard somewhere that they taste like chicken, but it just seems like the most meats, like everyone says, oh, it tastes like chicken. It does, though. I think I've heard that for a variety of different things. It's like fishy chicken.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it does, though, like it's just kind of again, I might have just had really bland frog because I think it was kind of just like it just tasted like boiled chicken, which I was just like, yeah, this whatever. But it's interesting to kind of, you know, I didn't even think about it until we were doing this episode. Like, of course you would if people were eating frogs, you would find mostly the hind limb bones because that's what you eat. You eat the frog legs.
00:26:18
Speaker
And I guess, yeah, they are kind of pretty meaty, I guess, you know, they got a jump, they got muscle. I'm not just not the biggest frog food fan. I'm a frog fan, but not a food fan of frogs. Yeah. You're like frogs alive in the ponds.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yes, I don't want them in my zoarcheological assemblage. I don't want them on my plate. I want them in a pond somewhere having a great time. I second that.
00:26:55
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, it's again, it's also one of those things that I wanted to kind of bring up the material culture of the Bigfoot leopard frog, because, again, given the fact that not everyone's trained in identifying amphibians, that they're kind of hard to identify. And to be honest, we haven't really touched upon this, but, you
00:27:17
Speaker
You know, it's the case of a lot of these type of bones. They're fragile. They're easily kind of destroyed or otherwise misplaced from the archaeological record. So having the material culture to back it up is really important. I mean, we do it for most other things, really, when we talk about like cultural depictions of animals and their importance. You know, you have the archaeological record, but you also have the kind of material record as well to back it up.
00:27:47
Speaker
But I think with amphibians and with animals that are easily missed in the archaeological record, I think it's quite important that we utilize these things.
00:27:57
Speaker
Because I guess a lot of it comes down as well to your excavation strategy. Because if you're not taking any environmental samples, you're not going to find amphibian remains. Because who's going to dig something and spot like a frog radio owner at the bottom of their ditch or something? You're like, oh, and the hand collects that. It's very unlikely to happen, unless you've literally got your face in the dirt.
00:28:21
Speaker
So like really it only comes through sort of the processing or like environmental samples if those are taken.
00:28:28
Speaker
Yeah, so it's it can be tricky. And again, I think that's the theme of this episode. It's tricky. It's hard. They're annoying. You find them. But if you do find them, if you are able to identify them and you're actually able to utilize them to their potential, they can really inform the paleo environmental history.
00:28:57
Speaker
I guess.
Frogs in Mesopotamian Culture
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah. So they're as difficult as they can be rewarding. Yes, that's a much more succinct way of what I was trying to say. So I think we will take a quick break and then we will go to, again, no one said it, it's just us, but whatever, it's our favorite part of the show, the case studies. So we'll see you then. Yeah, then.
00:29:24
Speaker
And we are back with archaeo-animals, the show all about zoo archaeology. And today we are talking about the zoo archaeology of amphibians, your frogs, your toads, your, what am I forgetting, newts? Newts and everything in between.
00:29:42
Speaker
We know of amphibians, as you can clearly tell. But yeah, it's the best part of the show, folks. It's the case study. And the first case study, I realized while deciding on doing this case study, have we talked about Mesopotamia at all on the show? I think we probably like touched upon it sort of when it came to domestication, perhaps.
00:30:11
Speaker
Yeah, of course they must have. It just struck me as kind of funny, especially, I've said this on the show before, but I did my undergraduate in classical archaeology. So I did Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Assyrian, well, that's Mesopotamian. I did all those Anatolian, Greek, Roman, all that fun stuff. That fall under classical.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was a bit, you know, loose and with the phrase, I guess. But yeah, that was all I did. It was very intense of my undergraduate. But I mean, it was good for me because it realized that I hate classical archaeology and I find it kind of boring. But it's handy, I guess, to have in general for like an intro to archaeology type of thing. Yeah, I suppose.
00:31:06
Speaker
So yeah, I did do a little bit of Mesopotamian archaeology, but just to kind of give a brief summary in case listeners don't know what Mesopotamia is. So it refers to a region in Western Asia between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, and it includes various cultures that you may have heard of, such as the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians in this
00:31:31
Speaker
kind of regions had activity and occupation occurring from 10,000 BC to about the 7th century AD. Now, this area has also been referred to as the Fertile Crescent, which was important to the development of agriculture in the early Neolithic. Obviously, you had those two rivers.
00:31:53
Speaker
rights in the area of the Fertile Crescent would be between these two rivers, and that would obviously help agriculture come to fruition. Haha, world play. I'm very funny. Everyone loves it. And that's probably why we did, if we did talk about Mesopotamia, it was probably because of domestication. A lot of things came from Mesopotamia in that sense. It's also, I mean, not zookeological related necessarily, but that's also where we have the first evidence of writing.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, the Sumerian. It's a lot of interesting stuff. The different cultures are very interesting. I was a big fan of the Lamassu sculptures, which if you live near a big national museum in the global north,
00:32:40
Speaker
of, you know, any country such as the United States or the United Kingdom. They probably have one of these, there are these big kind of statues of like a dude with a beard and he's like a griffin body. They're really cool. I used to love visiting the one at the Metropolitan in Manhattan. So yeah, Mesopotamia, pretty cool. But more importantly,
00:33:03
Speaker
They're all about frogs, too, because what else did those very important rivers provide? They provided frogs, lots of them, so much so that they became culturally important, not just due to their commonality, because they were literally everywhere, but also due to their associations with kind of the life giving power of the river.
00:33:26
Speaker
So in other words, frogs in Mesopotamia were likely associated with fertility, healing, cleansing and transformation. In further evidence of these associations can actually be found in the prevalence of frog and toad as well, iconography and amulets, as well as the use of frog remains in medicine.
Innovative Techniques in Identifying Amphibian Species
00:33:45
Speaker
So these frog amulets that I just mentioned, they're usually made of materials that were known to be culturally significant, like lapis lazuli. The most often, these were found in grave goods, but also in temples, palaces, and also like private domestic dwellings.
00:34:02
Speaker
And based on the translated text, because as Simona said, the Mesopotamia is where we have the earliest evidence of writing. So it's one of those very rare occasions where we actually have a wealth of text that we can translate and kind of get a better idea of, say, rituals, of medicinal approaches to things. So yeah, based on these translated texts, we know that frogs were actually used as scapegoats in ritual.
00:34:28
Speaker
So this actually was a great case study because it touched on a lot of my undergraduate because I also did a degree in anthropology and they're all about talking about ritual and stuff like that. Fun times. And we learned a lot about scapegoats. So scapegoats in ritual usually means that it's a person or a thing, an object, something where you misdirect something else
00:34:55
Speaker
from happening from a patient to that thing. So say, you know, you don't want to get cursed by someone. You use a scapegoat and kind of put that curse onto the scapegoat rather than the patient. Now, in the case of Mesopotamia, it seems like frogs were used as scapegoats in that disease was transmitted from a patient to the frog, which makes me kind of feel bad for the frog because, you know, what did they do to deserve that?
00:35:25
Speaker
The other interesting thing with Mesopotamia is that the researchers who worked on the frogs in general, kind of working on the cultural importance of frogs, they actually utilize herpetological information with textual evidence.
00:35:44
Speaker
because there was a bit of an issue in that they were getting frog remains, but they weren't getting a lot of frog remains and they were having trouble identifying them. So what they ended up doing was actually using modern day herpetological information and comparing it to textual evidence to kind of get a feel for what the
00:36:06
Speaker
species were most predominant in these rituals and these medicinal uses, and obviously there's a bit of problematic aspects as to that because, you know, things change over time. But it seems like that the frogs that were most referred to in these texts were probably the marsh frog.
00:36:27
Speaker
So it's a weird, interesting workaround to zoarchaeological interventions, I guess. I mean, it's not necessarily that different from what we do in that a lot of times when we use comparative material, it's modern day, but
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, they like looked up, you know, because these texts are like so specific, they would talk about like where they would get them, when they would get the frogs, what they looked like, and they were able to kind of narrow down the species based on that, which is kind of cool. Yeah. So our second.
00:37:05
Speaker
Right, so for our second case study, we're bringing it back home to Britain. We'll be discussing Pinhole Cave. The Pinhole Cave is a cave that is located within the Creswell Crags of England, so that's on the Nottinghamshire-Darbyshire border, and it's actually a series of caves
00:37:26
Speaker
I'd say all together are a hugely important prehistoric sighting. We have evidence of animals spanning like tens of thousands of years, we have evidence of human occupation, we have evidence of Neanderthal occupation, like you name it, they've got it there at Creswell Crags. And it is also important because we have one of the few if not the only evidence of cave art in Britain.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, pretty cool. And the site overall, I should expect, has been hugely important to understand past environment through zoo archeology and environmental archeology. Because one of the big issues has been sort of the identification of small vertebrates, including amphibians. As such, very little analysis has been done on the amphibian remains from Pinhal Cave.
00:38:11
Speaker
However, that has changed recently because some recent work using zooms may have helped to resolve some of these issues. Right. Quick reminder, what I'm talking about, when I say zooms, is actually Zoo Archaeology by Mass Spectometry, which is also known as collagen fingerprinting.
00:38:32
Speaker
This process uses the dominant protein found in bones, or type 1 collagen, to identify remains to species. And now this has mostly been used on larger fauna, so both domesticate and wild. But more recently, this has been applied on marine mammals, rodents and fish. So, gotta be done. So this recent work on amphibians was not only to see if the results could be useful to find remains from penal caves specifically,
00:39:00
Speaker
but also become a bit more of a rule to identify amphibian remains in general. Fortunately, the results were so far promising, which is great news for a variety of reasons. I mean, first of all, it's important to identify amphibian remains as we've discussed plenty of times already earlier in the episode. I mean, they can tell us a lot about past environments, particularly with regards to climate as
00:39:25
Speaker
Again, many amphibian species have very different tolerances for temperatures, you know, and they have very sort of specific environments that they thrive in. And also to, as a result, to give us an idea of what the landscape nearby was like. So for example, one of the species identified in Pinal Cave was the natterjack toad, which is mostly associated with salt marsh environments. Other species identified included yup.
00:39:51
Speaker
humble common frog, Rana temporaria, common toad, oofa-boofa, pinprue, and the more frog, Rana arvallis, which has actually since become extinct in the US, in the UK.
00:40:07
Speaker
Secondly, this is also very important for Alex and all of the zoarchaeologists that are very scared of small bones, as we know the means of confirming speech identification, and thus getting a lot more information to compile a zoarchaeological record with. That is if you get the funding to do that.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, of course. But I will say Zooms is really exciting and it's going to be, it'll be useful because, you know, that's the funny thing about zoo archaeology and the difficult thing about zoo archaeology is unless you're someone who very specifically spends their whole life basically researching a specific species or a specific type of animal. If you're a zoo archaeologist, for the most part, you're kind of expected to know
00:40:57
Speaker
all the species, you know? And that can be difficult. I mean, as you do it over time, you can get a feel for species and it's not as bad. But you know, every time, every so often you get thrown a curveball and having something like zooms.
00:41:12
Speaker
to be there to help identify. To support an identification is really important, especially for species that could make or break an interpretation. So the fact that amphibians seem to work well with zooms, because I also know from prior experience that zooms can be very finicky, depending on the preservation of bone that you've got and all these other kind of elements.
00:41:40
Speaker
It can be tricky, but the fact that Amphibian works on it is pretty good. Again, for people like me who are scared of small bones and don't like identifying them by eye. So, you know, they just need to do it on more fish, really. Just get yourself some nice, trusty hand blends and there's nothing you can't achieve.
00:42:01
Speaker
Says the person who's been working on fish all day and is clearly deteriorating before our eyes. I know amphibians, I think I said this before, I'll say it again. Amphibians are as difficult as they are rewarding because they can tell us a lot about past environments. It's a bit of a challenge, but at least I guess we're lucky enough sort of in British zoology where like there aren't a lot of species to choose from.
00:42:28
Speaker
So
Future Topics and Listener Engagement
00:42:29
Speaker
it's kind of a bit more restricted. But you can have the irrational, slightly irrational fear that I have, which is you'll be working on a huge changes everything site that you don't know about. And you've got a species that either doesn't exist
00:42:51
Speaker
right now in the country or like did exist and like hasn't been seen in ages and you just can't identify it that's my like biggest fear you know yeah but like that that yes a lot of things would have to align for that to happen listen what if you are working on a site where you have the one
00:43:12
Speaker
bit of axolotl in all of British prehistory. And you just don't know what it looks like. So you can't even identify it. That keeps me up at night, you know. Oh, you imagine that be like, oh, like, no, no, no, no, killed your circles for having identified the only oxolotl in the UK.
00:43:31
Speaker
Listen, when you work on British Iron Age sites and you're desperately trying to find an earlier chicken than the one that they just identified, it really haunts you, these kind of hypotheticals. Yeah. Or imagine just finding an oxalotl in an Iron Age ditch. I have so many questions.
00:43:54
Speaker
If that doesn't get me on in nature, then I don't know what will, let me tell you. Anyway, as we kind of drift into fantasy, or nightmares in my case, I think it's probably time to end this episode and let, and put Simone in a rest.
00:44:09
Speaker
A very tough day with small bone. So yeah, you know the drill. As we record this, Twitter seems to be deteriorating before our eyes as well. So for the time being, you can find us on Twitter at archaeoanimals, maybe not so in the future. But hey, we'll let you know on the Archaeology Podcast Network website, if we do end up having a new social media
00:44:36
Speaker
form, we'll see. But for now, we will go down on the Twitter ship, I think we are wherever you get your podcasts, of course. So if you are downloading your podcasts in a certain site, feel free to not only subscribe to us to begin with, but also give us a like or a review. I don't know what they do on the websites these days. And, you know, tell your friends about us and let us know what else we should talk about.
00:45:04
Speaker
Most importantly, all hate mail to Tristan. And that too. All hate mail to Tristan, that's never going to change. It'll always be that way, regardless of the different social media platforms that exist in the future. But yeah, otherwise, no, Tristan. Still not doing the right thing, the boofa boofo. Still not doing it.
00:45:29
Speaker
We're gonna do part two of the Star Wars episode. What are you talking about? We haven't done pop culture in ages. We did just did amphibians, you fools. Please, please, we're back again. We have no other outlet for this.
00:45:42
Speaker
But yeah, other than that, that plead, we will see you next episode where we will talk about even more annoying bones to work with, as always. It's been Alex with Patrick. We're gonna go take a nap now.
00:46:06
Speaker
Thank you for listening to RQ Animals. Please subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. You can find us on Twitter at RQAnimals. Also, the views expressed on the podcast are those of ourselves, the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent those of our institution, employers and the RQLG Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
00:46:30
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 Laura Johnson. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.