Sampling for animal mobility at a large scale: methods, challenges and possibilities

Abstract

The study of animal mobility in archaeology has experienced a huge development in the last few years following the generalisation of chemical analyses (e.g. ancient DNA and isotopic studies, namely on oxygen, strontium and sulphur isotopes). These techniques open new perspectives to analyse sourcing areas, mobility patterns and changes through time, but also present some challenges due to their financial costs and destructive nature. The present contribution will provide a discussion of the sampling strategy developed in the frame of the ERC project ‘ZooMWest-Zooarchaeology and Mobility in the Western Mediterranean: from the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity’. The project is focused on animal mobility, and both ancient DNA and strontium and oxygen isotopic studies are developed at a large chronological and spatial scale. Questions to be tackled will include the best strategies to detect translocation and regular trade, as well as to detect regular seasonal movements. The discussion will include some of the results obtained, which suggest different mobility patterns depending on the species and the time frame considered.