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Where in the World? Part Five: The Zooarchaeology of Oceania - Animals 49
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Welcome to episode three of a miniseries focusing on the zooarchaeology of various world regions. Join us on a journey to Oceania as we learn about the natural history and anatomy of the most prominent wild and domesticated species found in the area. Tune in to learn more about creatures such as the cassowary, thylacine and platypus.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/49
Sources
For a list of sources go to https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/49
Contact
- Alex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitz
- Simona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLady
- Alex’s Blog: Animal Archaeology
- Music "Coconut - (dyalla remix)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You're
Introduction to the Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Archaeo Animals, the show all about zoo archaeology.
Where in the World: Oceania Series
00:00:22
Speaker
Today with you is me as always, Sivanah Falanga, and with me... Alex Fitzpatrick. Yeah, and in this episode we're carrying on with our mini-series which we've titled Where in the World, but we sort of try to deviate a bit from British zoo archaeology, which we do tend to
00:00:41
Speaker
fossilize ourselves onto a bit much, but bear with us, we're both working for British archaeology.
Geography and Cultural Narratives of Oceania
00:00:48
Speaker
Thanks to this mini-series we've been trying to look at various different world regions and today we'll be covering Oceania. The previous episodes we've kind of broken down by continent and Oceania isn't really a continent but
00:01:06
Speaker
It is a region which does consist of Australia Asia, which is Australia and New Zealand, Melanesia, which includes Fiji, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, which includes the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands, the Gilbert Islands, and the Mariana Islands.
00:01:27
Speaker
Polynesia, which includes Hawaii, Samoa, Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island, and Tonga. We also want to note that occasionally throughout this episode, we will be referring to Aboriginal dreaming or dreamtime stories. These terms refer to Aboriginal cosmologies and beliefs that often describe how things came into being. They're commonly referred to as dreaming or dreamtime stories, and that'll be peppered in.
00:01:56
Speaker
as it's obviously extremely important to discussing animals in this region. And then the relationship they add with its inhabitants.
Iconic Fauna: Kiwi, Koala, and Platypus
00:02:05
Speaker
I guess we will start as always. For the first part of the show we'll be covering the wild taxa that are native to this region and then we're going to be moving on to domesticated species and right at the end in the third instalment as always we'll be covering our case studies.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll might as well start off with some of the wild species that are native to this region. And we will start off with the North Island brown kiwi. Apthetics mantelli. I'm not even being prompted now. I'm just doing it. I wasn't sure if you were stumped. There's some, some difficult ones in this episode.
00:02:44
Speaker
from what I can see. So, but yeah, so it's a subspecies of the kiwi. The North Island brown kiwi is, well, unsurprisingly, found on the North Island of New Zealand. However, ancient DNA research has shown that they were actually once much more widespread throughout New Zealand. In addition, a DNA work or ancient DNA work undertaken in 2011 on over 100
00:03:13
Speaker
Kahukiwi, which are cloaks that are made out of kiwi feathers are worn primarily by Maori leaders. The AD&A work actually indicated that they were predominantly made using North Island brown kiwi feathers, which has been interpreted
00:03:30
Speaker
mean that it was likely the North Island of New Zealand was probably an area with substantial Kahukui production. It should also be noted because it's a nice fun fact that apparently the North Island brown kiwi holds the record for the largest egg laid in proportion to its size. And that makes my body hurt just thinking about it. That's just me when I have too much food, isn't it?
00:04:00
Speaker
It's a very tiny bird, and then you look at the egg and you're like, oh boy, my goodness. But yeah, no, and also the AD&A work is really interesting, the idea. It's something that I've always been really interested in, and I've had some potential projects in the back burner in terms of using AD&A work and Zoom, Zoo MS, which is a zoo archaeology by mass spectrometry.
00:04:27
Speaker
Sorry about that. Forgot for a second. We've talked about these two techniques before in the past as a very kind of more common nowadays scientific approaches to zoarchology and looking at species identification. But I'm really interested in using that on things that are in collections and museums that we definitely know are from animal remains, but maybe aren't necessarily sure of the species. So it's cool that they were able to identify down to subspecies.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Because it's something that you just would not be able to do. You can use all the morphology and the biometry in the world, but for certain things, you have to use ADNA. Yeah, especially with fathers, I mean.
00:05:12
Speaker
It's really cool. And yeah, so I think maybe we'll move on from little kiwi birds to something maybe a bit more iconic. Oh, absolutely iconic. I mean, arguably, I guess one of the symbols of Australia, which is the Queensland koala.
00:05:34
Speaker
Wow, I thought you were going to get tripped up by that one. So the Queensland Koala is found throughout eastern and southern Australia. And of course, you know, it is one of the most iconic Australian mammals, perhaps only second to kangaroos.
00:05:50
Speaker
But you know, while they're very popular today, I mean, they have always been prevalent within within indigenous Australian culture, and occasionally featured indigenous art and iconography. Fun fact, they are often referred to as koala bears, except bears they are not and they are in fact marsupials. Because I am very, very keen on fun facts today, they also have the smallest brains in proportion to their bodies.
00:06:18
Speaker
big mood relatable. If you want to go down the fun fact road, I believe they also like only feed on eucalyptus leaves.
00:06:29
Speaker
big mood. I mean, not me, I'd rather not feed solely on eucalyptus leaves. But yeah, I guess one of the most interesting recent uses of koala remains sort of like going back to the archaeology has been in genomics research, it's rising koala skins in museum collections, sort of like tying into what you were
00:06:51
Speaker
talking about earlier, and this allowed scientists to recreate the evolution of particular retrovirus that may be potentially damaging to koala populations today.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's really interesting research. I think this episode has a lot of interesting genetic and a DNA research that we'll be talking about. And it's also nice to have an example. I don't think we get to talk about it a lot, but there are a lot of examples of archaeology and zoo archaeology being used and applied to more present day issues, especially when it comes to archaeology with conservation.
00:07:30
Speaker
Although that's exactly what I was going to say, because while it is clearly very interesting to learn about the past and past, the human-animal interactions clearly wouldn't be here otherwise, to be able to produce a piece of research that can actually have a positive impact on the ecology of a certain species, that that's just the big plus, isn't it?
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And I think we'll move on to the next one, which is, I think someone is very interested in hearing or potentially talking about the platypus. It's mostly found in eastern Australia, and it's also possibly most known for being one of five mammalian species that can lay eggs.
00:08:23
Speaker
the other four being various Enkidna species. Now, there's one Aboriginal Dreamtime story which describes how the platypus originates from a duck, which was adopted by a water rat and eventually gave birth to platypuses, platypusi, platypuses, via egg.
00:08:45
Speaker
Another Dreamtime story describes how the platypus in being asked by the birds, the marsupials, and the fish to join their respective families declines all of them as it wants to remain friends with all of them as it shares traits with each group. And these are such great stories. It's so instructive of
00:09:05
Speaker
a platypus, because yeah, a platypus is kind of, it's all those things, isn't it? Can we just stop about for a minute and think how wild that is? Because it's still like, because I've known that a platypus were a viparous, like for a long time, but it's just, just something, you can't quite wrap your head around like a mammal that lays eggs. What? Oh, nature. And it's, and it's like a duck, but it's also like a little rodent.
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, right. And also, yeah, I do really like the Dreamtime stories, like, especially sort of the last one, like the Platypus just wants to get along with everyone, so he won't choose. Yeah, it's very, it's very sweet. So maybe not slightly
00:09:53
Speaker
not as sweet maybe, but it's still important to talk about how the platypus was also important because it provided a lot of nutrients for Aboriginal peoples who did hunt the platypus for food as their tails are actually particularly very fatty. But unfortunately, once European colonial settlers arrived, they were mostly hunted for their fur by the Europeans and
00:10:17
Speaker
Unfortunately, to make matters worse, as colonial era natural science progressed, many of these platypuses were also captured and killed for dissection of their reproductive systems, because obviously that was extremely intriguing to the Europeans, and as well as they were captured for their eggs. And unfortunately, that will be another bit of a through line in this episode with regards to colonial science, kind of.
00:10:45
Speaker
wrecking a bit of havoc in the Australian and larger oceanic regions.
Red Kangaroo and Kangaroo Research
00:10:55
Speaker
To move from the sad state of affairs, we have another fun fact, although it's not that fun really, from our producer Tristan, who's whispering from the sight lines that the Platypus is also one of the few living mammals to produce venom. The other mammal being me.
00:11:22
Speaker
Thank you.
00:11:24
Speaker
And we'll move back to iconic Australian mammals. And this time, you know, we've covered the koala. And of course, we felt like we had to cover the red kangaroo. Osfrante rufus, just to make sure it's the red one, rufus, the red one, which is the largest kangaroo, the largest Australian terrestrial mammal, and the largest existing marsupial.
00:11:53
Speaker
So I guess much like the koala, the icon of Australia.
00:11:59
Speaker
A present day, the red kangaroo was found throughout Western and Central Australia. And interestingly, one of the most important archaeological contributions that red kangaroo have made are modern ones. Through not ADNA this time, but isotopic analysis of modern kangaroo and wallaby populations, archaeologists have actually been able to identify correlations between the isotopic variability and ecological change.
00:12:25
Speaker
which can then be applied and reused to recreate Australian paleo-environments. Yeah, a lot of the science in this episode, for sure, is really interesting. And I guess there's also so much biodiversity and very specific types of species in the oceanic region that I guess it's not surprising that there's a lot of really interesting science going on. Yeah, if you don't hear me talking, it's just my brain is melting.
00:12:54
Speaker
from all the science. It's a bit hot. From the science, it's also a bit hot. So I will continue to bring down the mood then with our final example, which I feel like we had to talk about because it's very important, even if it's very sad, and it's the thylacine.
Thylacine Extinction and Conservation Debate
00:13:17
Speaker
So, probably the icon, we were talking about icons this episode, and sadly, the thylacine is probably the icon for human-influenced extinctions. The thylacine was the largest marsupial carnivore prior to its untimely extinction in about 1936.
00:13:37
Speaker
It was found widely throughout Australia and Tasmania at one point, but eventually it was horrifically vilified by European settlers who claimed that the Thalassine were killing their sheep and their livestock. So between this kind of vilification and the desire
00:13:56
Speaker
They didn't. No, they didn't. Hmm. Yeah. Why would they lie? Hmm. Anyway, so between that kind of vilification and the desire by natural history and zoo archeological measure, archaeological site, zoological garden collectors, you know, the precursors to the modern day zoos to have the specimens of their own bounties made the capture and or killing a fallacy and a pretty lucrative business.
00:14:26
Speaker
So there were bounties also put for just killing Phylacine, because again, there is this propaganda that they were killing sheep and livestock. Now, the last Thylacine was a captive named Benjamin held at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania, who sadly died in 1936. But there's still alleged sightings of Thylacines in the wild, although none of them have really been confirmed. So maybe they're out there. We don't know.
00:14:55
Speaker
I mean, hopefully, but I think it's one of those things that it's better to think about. It's better to think that in spite of all sort of oppression and slaughter of this beautiful animal, but maybe it's survived and it's still out there, it's probably a much better thought to reconcile with than no, we have obliterated this animal.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah, I know that occasionally hotshots will post like massive bounties for evidence of a thylacine and, you know, and we will cover this in the next part. But there is a species that looks a bit similar to the thylacine that a lot of these sightings tend to be. But yeah, I guess there's a lot of a lot of hope and optimism maybe that they've escaped this horrible fate and
00:15:45
Speaker
They're just chilling as far away from humans as possible, which I don't blame
Domesticated Species of Oceania
00:15:49
Speaker
them. So with that extremely depressing thought, I think we'll take a break and we'll hopefully get a bit chipper again and start our next section after this.
00:16:02
Speaker
And we are back with Archio Animals, the podcast all about zoo archaeology. In this episode, we're talking about the zoo archaeology of Oceania as part of our mini series, Where in the World.
00:16:17
Speaker
And now we will be talking about the domesticated species that are normally found in this region, and kind of touching upon what we just talked about, though not as sad this time. But I guess a somewhat similar in appearance species is the dingo. Yeah. Canis familiaris dingo. So it's a bit
00:16:44
Speaker
calling it domesticated may be a bit of a stretch. They are technically feral, but dingoes are canids that are found primarily in Australia, and they are a basil or ancient canine breed, which I think we've talked about in a previous episode.
00:17:06
Speaker
I guess in theory it is a subspecies of the domestic dog because it is Cany's Familiaris which is of course the scientific name for the domestic dog but it's got the dingo at the end of it so
00:17:20
Speaker
It's a bit, yeah, it's a bit confusing though. Cause obviously, you know, we know that they are, they are domestic or at least descendants from, you know, candidates and, but they are, their origins are not really understood, which I mean, it's kind of the case for a lot of these domestication things, isn't that we're still kind of in the last maybe decade, we've only just started to really understand.
00:17:45
Speaker
some of the domestication origins of a lot of these very common species. Yeah, and again, probably going back to they probably descend to from various domestication events in various locations, which I'm afraid is going to be like the broken record for most of the domesticates that we cover on the podcast as a whole.
00:18:06
Speaker
I mean, guess we can class the dingo as a domesticate, because I mean, unless any sort of recent scientific studies prove otherwise, even though they are feral, so in a way, so a domesticate that's sort of gone back into the wild in a feral state, they've clearly not changed enough
00:18:26
Speaker
to warrant us a speciation of any kind? No. So, yeah, it's a bit, I mean, the real confusion is obviously where did they originate from? They were definitely brought to Australia around 8000 years ago.
00:18:43
Speaker
But it's not clear as to where they've originated. There's been research looking at the fact that you cannot find Dingo remains before a certain point. Clearly, they must have been brought here. The main hypothesis is it's likely somewhere in Asia, which kind of makes sense. A lot of the domesticates that we do have, they did originate from Asia.
00:19:07
Speaker
But again, where in Asia, it's still not completely clear. So there's still a lot of genetic research that needs to be done to kind of clear that up. But between hybridization and crossbreeding, and as Simona said, domestication isn't necessarily
00:19:25
Speaker
just a one time event.
Avian Domestication in Oceania
00:19:28
Speaker
It could happen in multiple places. Obviously, I think in our cat episode, we talked a bit about how the cat has basically been domesticated twice. So it's not as cut and dry as I think we would like it to be. So maybe in a couple of years, five, 10 years from now, we might have a better idea as to where the dingo actually fits in the lineage, I guess.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, I guess like it must have been brought because of course, like Australia and New Zealand are sort of abundant in marsupial animals. Also, like, one of the main reasons is because they've not been exposed to sort of placental mammals.
00:20:12
Speaker
Is that the term? I'm blanking. Yeah. They've not been exposed to that. They've not been exposed to sort of placental mammals as much because in a way like it has been shown that you know, as other mammals were introduced to Australia, the native sort of marsupial species greatly suffered from that competition. And it is indeed like the case going back to the phyla scene, the phyla scene was also
00:20:38
Speaker
uh I think even before uh colonial Scott there was somewhat struggling from sort of competition from the dingo so they were brought they were brought from somewhere by someone it's the my scientific take
00:20:54
Speaker
Well, yeah, and clearly they were brought by humans, and that's impacted the way that their relationship with humans have been since then. Despite their feral status, dingoes have basically lived alongside humans in what's likely more of a commensal
00:21:11
Speaker
relationship rather than one of complete, you know, cut and dry domestication. So in other words, dingoes do benefit from association with humans, but they don't actually require us to survive, nor does this relationship harm either species. And this kind of relationship with humans is well documented, especially in prehistoric evidence we have with dingoes and aboriginal peoples.
00:21:36
Speaker
And it's not only evident in the various depictions of dingoes in rock art, but also there have been some instances of burials of dingoes which share some similarities in human burial tradition. So obviously there is at least enough of importance to warrant that sort of careful burial.
00:21:57
Speaker
So regardless of whether or not the Dingo was ever truly, truly domesticated or even tamed, it was clearly held in some regard by Aboriginal peoples, and there's still that kind of relationship which exists till today. And moving to one that you wouldn't expect is the dwarf cassowary, Cassowarius Benetti, also known as the Little Cassowary, or the Mountain Cassowary, I know. It's so cute.
00:22:28
Speaker
If you look up any other cassowary species, they are horrifying, terrifying little murder machines. And I believe that there is like countless cases of violence by larger cassowaries towards humans. But the dwarf cassowary is very cute. I just wanted to give a little shout out. It's just so tiny and adorable.
00:22:51
Speaker
just yeah so little with its little blue and pink head oh yes the cassowary is the the smallest of the cassowary species as you would expect which are a species of ratite bird that being they are flightless and they also don't have a keel on their sternum which is a bit of the bone that unsurprisingly perhaps looks like the keel of a boat could it be why it's called the keel oh
00:23:21
Speaker
Who knows? It will be similar to enews or ostriches. Now the dwarf cassowary is found predominantly throughout New Guinea as well as some of the surrounding islands. During the late Pleistocene and Holocene cassowary bones were potentially used for tall production. Some examples being cassowary daggers or in particular which are mostly made of the tibia tarsus.
00:23:48
Speaker
which unfortunately are not very commonly recovered, so in the archaeological record, so they're not really entirely understood at present. But now, because I'm sure there are people going, okay, we're talking about domesticated species, so what's with this little castle wearing?
00:24:04
Speaker
There has been relatively recent research which indicates that cassowaries may have been at least semi-domesticated by humans 18,000 years ago, which would make it pre-date chicken domestication. I'll just stop myself from banging my hand on the table.
00:24:25
Speaker
That's my point making stance. So while adult cassowaries were likely hunted as well, there has been newly recovered evidence that suggests that eggs were potentially collected by humans. And granted, some of that might have been for, you know, the obvious eating. However, there may have also been an attempt to hatch the eggs for themselves, for domestication.
00:24:51
Speaker
But you know, so this research is still relatively new. So you know, there's still need to be some additional analysis or an evaluation stages, but the potential of this is very exciting indeed.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's extremely interesting. It's I think only like a year or two out in publication. So it's extremely new research. It would kind of shake up our conceptions of domestication, at least avian domestication as well. So to stay tuned, maybe maybe we'll learn more about what is the I guess the pre chicken.
00:25:30
Speaker
Speaking of the pre-chicken, our last example is kind of, I mean, it's in the same genus. It's the green jungle fowl. And it's also known as the Javan jungle fowl or the forktail.
00:25:53
Speaker
The green jungle fowl is one of four jungle fowl species, the others being the red jungle fowl, the Sri Lankan jungle fowl, and the gray jungle fowl. Now today, green jungle fowl are often bred in captivity due to the potential loss of genetic diversity.
00:26:14
Speaker
But there has been, again, some relatively recent advances in genetic studies of galliforms. And the complexity of chicken domestication, which we've talked about previously on this podcast, is always kind of in the news in terms of discovering new things. Obviously, here in the UK, finding the first chicken and the earliest chicken has been a massive project.
00:26:42
Speaker
And yeah, so there's been recent advances in genetic studies that have indicated that maybe it's not as cut and dry as we thought. Obviously, we kind of view the red jungle fowl as the primary ancestor of the chicken. I think even Charles Darwin is the original guy who singled out the red jungle fowl as the
00:27:10
Speaker
wild ancestor of the domesticated chicken. But it may be not as cut and dry as we thought. There may have been a bit more hybridization and crossbreeding along the way. And that may potentially include the green jungle fowl as well as the gray jungle fowl. And this kind of crossbreeding may have been seen in the various
00:27:38
Speaker
chicken breeds that we have variety and skins and things like that. So it's extremely interesting. And even today, a lot of these jungle file are crossbred with chickens. So there is modern day precedent for it. So it's not completely out of the question that it may potentially happened a bit more in the past. So again, some really interesting research that
00:28:05
Speaker
In the next couple of years, maybe we'll have a bit more concrete stuff, but we'll see. I think, again, this episode has been somehow a secret archaeological sciences episode in that there just seems to be a lot of really recent research being done in genetics and AD&A work in the oceanic region.
00:28:28
Speaker
And again, you know, a lot of these sciences have only kind of recently been picked up and really focused on, you know, in the last few decades. So it's not that surprising. But the fact that it can shake up our conceptualization of some domesticated species is huge for sure. Oh, absolutely. So just have to keep our ears out.
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, and hey, I didn't do like five different versions of cattle this episode. I just did two birds instead. I'm sure we can win that.
00:29:05
Speaker
rectify that. It's a bit hard, I guess, because obviously a lot of what we've been talking about with Australia are this introduced species and things like that. So a lot of the the domesticates happen to be, you know, species we've talked about that have been brought over. So, you know, we just get a little creative folks
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, I guess yeah, we won't be able to discuss length or the various cattle breeds. Literally fell a lot of them are sort of European and the producer is whispering quiet everyone. Yeah. What was the big one?
00:29:52
Speaker
Got that cattle called. Really big one. A massive one. Funny name. The big cattle with a funny name. I can think of one breed of cattle that's got massive horns, but I think that's mostly found in North America. And I also call it. Yeah, no, it was like a nickname going to the cattle. From the last episode? No, no, no. Oh, no, no, no. A while ago. Oh,
00:30:20
Speaker
Oh, oh no. I can't remember, folks. I wasn't trying to catch out here. It wasn't by any chance knickers, was it? Yes, yes, it's knickers. Oh, yeah. How can we forget? Six feet, four inches tall and weighing just over 1.4 tonnes.
00:30:44
Speaker
Amazing. Amazing. See, even though it's not meant to be in the episode, still managed to bring the cattle in. We haven't brought Romans in though, so just saying. We could talk about cattle until the cows come home.
00:31:03
Speaker
Maybe it's better if there's anything else in this segment or we can go to the
Rapa Nui's Zooarchaeological Insights
00:31:09
Speaker
case. We need to go to the next one. Bad jokes, bad segment. Just go to the next one. We'll see you after the break, folks. And we are back with Archaeo Animals, the podcast all about zoo archaeology. And today we've been talking about the zoo archaeology of Oceania. And as always, we are at
00:31:31
Speaker
the allegedly best part of the show, the case studies.
00:31:35
Speaker
And I think we are going to start with the zoo archaeology of Rapa Nui, also known by some people as Easter Island. Now, Rapa Nui is probably most known for the Moai, which are these series of giant, monolithic statues of humans that are actually made primarily from volcanic ash, and although
00:32:03
Speaker
In popular culture, people have referred to them as the Easter Island heads. Excavations have actually shown that most of the statues are of predominantly full bodies. They're not just the heads.
00:32:17
Speaker
Now, Rapa Nui is kind of the center of a lot of debate with regards to the potential ecological and socio-cultural collapse of the Polynesian inhabitants prior to the arrival of European colonists. Again, kind of that beam of
00:32:38
Speaker
the importance of conservation and using the oceanic regions as kind of sites of a lot of scientific analysis and projects centering this idea of looking at biodiversity and conservation. So Rapa Nui has always kind of been seen as this center potentially of a past example of ecological collapse.
00:33:06
Speaker
However, it should be noted that environmental archaeology has shown that mass deforestation definitely occurred at some point in the past. Interestingly, one of the theories for why deforestation may have occurred is actually centered on the arrival of an invasive species, the Pacific rat.
00:33:34
Speaker
Ratus excellence. Thank you. Who were originally brought over by the Polynesians and was thought to have aided in this rapid deforestation through devouring the nuts from the Rapa Nui Palm. Oh, he's knowing your cue. Are you proud of me?
00:34:00
Speaker
I am proud. And that was a plant name, too, which I don't think we've actually done. So exciting. Welcome to our Q plans. Archaeobotany. Archaeoplans anyway. Archaeoplans. Yeah, I said archaeobotany and then realize, well, our podcast isn't called zoo archaeology. So why would I say that? Welcome to our kids? Well, there is, you know, there are many places
00:34:28
Speaker
in the world where it's called archaeozoology, which sounds wrong. Sorry, folks. Well, archaeozo I think you'll catch the mood because this show does feel like a zoo a lot of the times. Yeah, and the animals are loose, baby. Anyway, to get back to the case study. So the Pacific rat
00:34:50
Speaker
potentially may have aided in deforestation because it just devoured the nuts from the Rapa Nui palm, leaving none for actual regrowth. However, revaluation of the evidence, which I believe most of the evidence has been kind of taphognomic in nature. It's not
00:35:09
Speaker
It's a little doubt of that being the main reason. And, you know, there's also in general kind of doubt as to whether or not the kind of collapse is as massive as people make it out to be. So, you know, unsurprisingly, kind of moving on from that, the isotopic analysis of human remains from Rapa Nui has indicated that, you know,
00:35:36
Speaker
Of course, more or at least half of their diet of the prehistoric inhabitants was marine based. And again, they were on an island. So not that surprising, although there was a fair amount that was also based on, you know, root crops and things like that. So not just marine food, but a good portion for sure. And chickens were also consumed, having been introduced to the island by the Polynesians.
00:36:05
Speaker
Now, Rapa Nui itself is actually a really interesting example of introduced species in a relatively isolated space. And I think that's why the debate over the potential collapse has become so heated, as many who argue that there was a massive ecological and socio-cultural collapse often use Rapa Nui as a case study due to these kind of unique characteristics that it's
00:36:34
Speaker
It's isolated, that's populated by many invasive species, that there's evidence of deforestation and all that. But there's been more evidence coming up, especially in the last couple of years, that suggests that despite all this deforestation, there wasn't as much of a dramatic collapse as those like the theorize. So, you know, the debate just continues.
00:37:00
Speaker
And this is just a little thing I wanted to bring up because I've realized I don't think we've we really don't talk about turtles. But yeah, with regards to animal symbolism, sea turtles were actually probably a very important part of prehistoric Rapa Nui culture.
00:37:20
Speaker
as turtle bones have been found buried alongside human remains. They've been used as a motif in various artworks that have been found, and it was actually a pretty important component to ornamental layer.
Megafauna at Cuddie Springs: Human Interaction?
00:37:34
Speaker
So I think we got to talk about turtles more. Well, if people are interested, we could do a whole episode on turtles. Why not? One hour of turtles.
00:37:47
Speaker
If you're interested, as always, let us know. Because I don't think we really haven't covered reptiles and amphibians and little things like that. We really haven't. We really should. Reptiles, amphibians. To be fair, would we, would we cover insects? They are animals.
00:38:15
Speaker
But we've talked about the green weevil. Yes, but leave poor General Sitophilus Granadius alone. He's resting, he's had a hard week. Thieving your grave.
00:38:29
Speaker
No, you're right. I mean, again, we kind of talk a lot about what we know. And I mean, that's why this miniseries has been a great excuse for us to kind of get out of our comfort zone and talk about loads of species that we really don't talk about at all, unless it's a species that the Romans took back with them, which to be fair was a lot. So not as much not as much that we haven't talked about maybe than we thought. But still,
00:38:57
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be good. It's something I'll definitely be covering in the future also because these species, particularly amphibians and reptiles, they have such sort of niche environments that they live in that they're very helpful for paleo-environmental reconstruction, which is something else we should cover. But I guess enough of our things we should cover, and back to things that we have already planned to cover. Second case study.
00:39:21
Speaker
is the zoo archaeology of Cootie Springs. Cootie Springs, Australia, is the Pleistocene site located in New South Wales. And now, technically, we're pushing a little bit into paleontology here, as the site is probably most well known for being one of the most renowned sites in Australia, given the representation of extinct megafauna that was uncovered from the context there. Now, there's got to be a series of mouthfuls because there's a lot of species names in this.
00:39:52
Speaker
I think Alex wishes to test me. So the megaphone I found on the right included, but is not limited to, Macropos giganteus titan, an extinct species of kangaroo that is the likely ancestor of Macropos giganteus, the great kangaroo.
00:40:11
Speaker
Genioris niltani, also known as the Thunderbird, or Mihirung, which was a giant extinct bird species. The Bratodon, a giant marsupial whose closest living ancestor, probably going to be Wombats and Koalas,
00:40:28
Speaker
Another extinct kangaroo species. Another extinct kangaroo genus. Not a kangaroo, but another extinct marsupial megafauna, just kind of similar to wallabies.
00:40:46
Speaker
and the Paludirex, formerly known as Palimanarchus, but has recently been categorised since 2020 due to a revaluation of their taxonomy, this being an extinct genus of kangunup crocodile, giant crocodile. Although excavations were first started
00:41:12
Speaker
Thank you, thank you. Far too kind, thank you. Although excavations at Cudi Springs were first mounted by Europeans in the late 19th century, Aboriginal Dreamtime stories regarding the fossils found at the site had already been noted. These findings, however, at least added further confirmation to the connections to the land and then later archaeological research undertaken at the site has been done in collaborations with local Aboriginal communities.
00:41:40
Speaker
Perhaps the most important thing recovered at the site, or the most important bit of evidence, is that flaked stone tools were found in situ alongside the remains of the megafauna, which has led to the debate of whether or not Cudi springs represents proof of human like slash megafauna coexistence or interaction, which in a way makes it archaeological and hence why it is here. There you go.
00:42:06
Speaker
archaeologists who originally excavated the site did theorise that it was once a site of human occupation in the late Pleistocene where megafauna would have been utilised as a resource. So something I'll be more interested to hear about in the future as well. Because there are, as you may suspect,
00:42:25
Speaker
Again, another one of the running themes, there are arguments against this theory of human animal interruption that are mostly based on sort of the interpretation of stratigraphy matrices. So the debate continues, because the collective noun for archaeologists should be an argument. Merle Yeah, no, you're right. I mean,
00:42:53
Speaker
Of course, it's archaeologists who their main argument would be based on stratigraphical interpretation, which, to be fair, still hurts my brain sometimes to look at a Harris matrix and think about that. So don't blame them, really. Oh, no, I love me a good Harris matrix. Just give me recuts and just intercutting features and just, oh, no, I like me a good matrix.
00:43:22
Speaker
So how would you what are your feelings about this debate? Do you think it has merit? Obviously, we're not looking at the Harris matrix themselves, but that's, I think it's hard to tell without looking at the matrix as I mean, if the the megaphone is found in the same context as the lithic. But then again, I don't know, because that's also something that's outside of my expertise, because you wouldn't have sort of the matrices, as I know them, because we're talking
00:43:51
Speaker
about sort of appear aside far removed into prehistory which of course won't have any archaeological features as we know them sort of even in later prehistory because of course there wouldn't have been there would have been little to no farming at the time so there wouldn't be formal like negative features as we know them so
00:44:12
Speaker
probably even if i looked at the matrix or that all that would be a head scratcher.
Reflections and Closing Remarks
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah you sound your brains melting a bit thinking it through.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, because of course, like the one thing about prehistoric sites, I mean, normally, like you would identify there was that you go down through the horizon to be like, oh, Flint scatter, which of course, is not what you tend to find insights from sort of the not necessarily the later prehistoric period, but going into the Neolithic sort of with the introduction of agriculture and it becoming widespread. As a sustenance strategy, you tend to find sort of what are known as the negative features of people sort of purposely
00:44:49
Speaker
digging into the ground, whether it's for a rubbish pit or whether it's for a boundary ditch or a variety of drainage ditches and cultivation systems, or like dwellings, of which more often than not, you won't get the dwelling per se because they'll be made out of timber and
00:45:07
Speaker
usually won't preserve very well. But you might get some of the drainage gully going around the building because something as early as that you're not going to get much in the way of that. I think you're spiraling. It's an argument. You're meant to spiral the faint talk discuss
00:45:29
Speaker
No, it's it's one of those things where if you think too hard about it, your brain starts going into pretzels, trying to to argue around itself. It's one of those things where I do like the big question sometimes. This isn't even a big question. It's it's about stratigraphy. But even then hurts my brain sometimes to think about it. I can say send us matrices.
00:45:54
Speaker
Please don't. Please don't send us matrices. I don't want to see them. Send them to Simona. Or send them to Tristan.
00:46:04
Speaker
He's been through enough. Anyway, I promise you we will not do an episode on matrices. Maybe that will be a bonus episode. Simona does by herself, where she just talks about matrices and how much she loves them. And I stay as far away from that recording as possible. And I think we have reached the end of the episode when we're talking this long about Harris matrices. So as always,
00:46:34
Speaker
You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. So while you're there, you know, tell your friends to follow or subscribe to us. Leave a review, because that always helps us out. You can also find us at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com slash animals.
00:46:54
Speaker
When you're over there, think about becoming a member that supports all of us. And there's loads of shows on the network of all different archaeologists who are funnier and smarter than us. And you can listen to them instead. Although I guess we are uniquely funny and smart. We talk about Harris matrices.
00:47:14
Speaker
And follow us on Twitter at archaeo animals. Let us know if for some weird reason you want an episode on Harris matrices. I won't do it, but hey, maybe Simona will. And I think that's it. See you next time.
00:47:34
Speaker
See ya! 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 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 RQ podcast network. Thanks for listening.
00:48:05
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech 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.