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NEWS ARCHIVE
LANDSNAILS AS FOOD: PAST AND PRESENT Colloquium for the next UISPP, Lisbon, 2006 David Lubell, at the University of Alberta, is organising this upcoming colloquium. Those interested in participating should contact him directly at dlubell@ualberta.ca or by snail mail at: David Lubell, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4, Canada. The colloquium abstract is as follows:
Land
snails are a frequent, often abundant, component in a few Late Pleistocene
and in hundreds of early to mid-Holocene archaeological deposits throughout the
circum-Mediterranean region. The
most spectacular examples are the Capsian escargotières of eastern Algeria and
southern Tunisia, but archaeological sites containing abundant land snail shells
that represent food debris are known from Cantabria, the Pyrenees, southern
France, Italy, southeastern Europe including the Balkans, Cyprus and the Levant,
the Zagros region, Ukraine and Cyrenaica.
Outside
the Mediterranean area the occurrence of land snails as food debris in
archaeological deposits is less common, but nonetheless present in a number of
regions, including Brazil, Peru, Texas, the Caribbean, East Africa, Nigeria and
Sudan. There is also evidence for past and modern use of amphibious
fresh water snails as food amongst the Maya, while fresh water snails are known
from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites in several regions of China
What
is the significance of land snails as prehistoric food?
Do they represent a signature for the period just prior to the adoption
of food producing economies? Were
they a starvation food or are they evidence of feasting?
Were they, in some cases, domesticated?
What is the nutritional contribution of land snails to prehistoric and
ethnographically documented diets?
These
are all questions that remain to be answered, and it will be the goal of this
colloquium to bring together a group of interested scholars to develop means to
answer them.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BIOLOGICAL STATION MINI-COURSES This (US) Spring, the University of Michigan Biological Station are running non-credit adult mini-courses. Included within the programme is a course offered by Dr John B. Burch on 'Mollusks of Northern Michigan'. The course runs from June 9-13th. For those interested in more information, please follow the link.
SYMPOSIUM IN HONOUR OF VOJEN LOŽEK 25-28 July 2005, Prague A symposium is being organised in honour of Voken Ložek, who is the most important European Quaternary malacologist of the second half of the twentienth century. The syposium is entitled: Molluscs, Quaternary stratigraphy, faunal changes and environmental dynamics Proceedings will be published. For more information, please contact Professor Ivan Horáček, Department of Zoology, Charles University, Viničná 7, CZ 128 44 Praha, Czech Republic. Phone: 00420 221951851 Fax: 00420 221951841
NEW MEMBER PROFILE: MARCELA LUCERO JUEZ Despite the many references in ethnographies to shell artefacts in Chile, Marcela is one of very few archaeomalacologists actively studying shells as tools in her country. She comments that shell artefacts are often placed under the 'miscellaneous' section of reports and there is generally no systematic approach to their analysis. Marcella's dissertation work comprises an evaluation of the use of shell artefacts in the early settlement of the semi-arid region of Chile (c. 10,000 BP, Complejo Cultural Huentelauquén). Given assumptions regarding the coastal adaptations of the Complejo Cultural Huentetauquén, Marcela hypothesised that a range of shell tools - including both expedient and curated forms - should have been utilised. Her methodological approach is based on protocols more commonly seen with lithic analysis, but adapted to the peculiarities of shell as a raw material. So far, she has conducted experimental work using Mytilus edulis, Venus antiqua, Mesodesma donacium and Concholepas concholepas to examine their potential as expedient tools on different materials, and in different states. Examine of microwear will then set a baseline for interpreting archaeological specimens. Taphonomic concerns have also been factored into this methodology. For a rundown of Marcela's work more generally, refer to the South America page, and for a selection of her publications please see the publications page.
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