Search

Zooarchaeological freshwater mussel remains provide information about past environments, faunal communities, and human behaviors. However, one challenge of using archaeological assemblages of animal remains is differential preservation such that bones and shells of some taxa are more vulnerable to processes that destroy or remove them from the record over time. Thus, remains of some species of freshwater mussels may be underrepresented in terms of presence/absence data as well as abundance compared to the life or death assemblages. Evaluating the representativeness of assemblages before using such data to answer zooarchaeological and paleozoological research questions is common practice in archaeology, particularly for vertebrate remains. However, little research has focused on evaluating representativeness for molluscan assemblages. In this paper, three processes that potentially influence archaeomalacological data are addressed: mussel life history strategies, shell identifiability, and shell robusticity. Expectations about taxonomic abundances in unionid zooarchaeological assemblages are framed and assessed using two datasets from sites from the Leon River in central Texas. As expected, shell robusticity and identifiability influence zooarchaeological abundance data; differences in life history strategy can be used to interpret past stream environments. The expectations derived in this paper can be used as interpretive tools for understanding factors that influence archaeomalacological taxonomic abundance data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Expectations for survival of vertebrate remains have been well developed and intensely studied in the zooarchaeological taphonomic literature. Taphonomic studies of shellfish remains focus on marine species and on variables relevant to remains from paleontological contexts (e.g., fossil marine beds). In this paper we develop a conceptual framework from which to derive expectations concerning the preservation of freshwater mussel remains focusing on two parameters, shell microstructure and shell shape. Shell size does not influence survivorship. Our model is validated through application to late Holocene zooarchaeological mussel assemblages from north Texas. Taphonomically robust species are important regarding zooarchaeological and biogeographic interpretations based on mussel paleofaunas, and fragile species are important indicators of whether or not an assemblage is well preserved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]