Re: [dinosaur] Paleontology v. archaeology

[Ronald Orenstein <ron.orenstein@rogers.com>]

With respect to recently extinct species: Just for the fun of it, I did a 
Google search on Raphus cucullatus (the Dodo) and found papers in:

Historical Biology (2006)
Journal of Zoology (1993)
Quaternary Science (2009)
Naturwissenschaften (2011)
Ibis (2006)
Annales de PalÃontologie (2005)
etc

So it would seem to straddle a number of disciplines including both zoology and 
palaeontology.

Ronald Orenstein
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, ON L5L 3W2
Canada
ronorenstein.blogspot.com
ronorensteinwriter.blogspot.com






On Monday, December 14, 2020, 06:30:16 a.m. EST, Heinrich Mallison 
<heinrich.mallison@gmail.com> wrote: 





To add to Thomas' excellent post:

" 
Basically, the question you should ask yourself if you have trouble identifying 
whether a particular paper or other piece of science is archaeology or not is - 
are the authors applying archaeological principles? Are they interested in 
answering questions about human _culture_? If they are interested in the 
genetic or morphological differences between Neanderthal and Sapiens or Sapiens 
and Erectus, I would be less likely to call it archaeology, although the 
conclusions of that research would no doubt be informative to archaeologists. 
But studying early sapiens artwork, or Neanderthal tool use, those could be 
considered archaeology.


"
In germany, we'd call the study of human remains that is NOT interested in 
their _culture_ but their _biology/paleontology_ "palaeoanthropology".
_______________________________________________________
Dr. Heinrich Mallison

cell: +49 (0)179 5429922
email: heinrich.mallison@gmail.com
blog: dinosaurpalaeo.wordpress.com


On Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 11:30 AM Yazbeck, Thomas <yazbeckt@msu.edu> wrote:
>ÂÂ
>ÂÂ
>ÂÂmy amateur understanding is that there are two parameters to consider. 
>first, for obviously non-human animals, the real distinction is between 
>palaeontology and archaeozoology. archaeozoology is the study of how humans 
>and animals interacted in the past. It's more of a methodological distinction 
>than anything else; if you're trying to extract viable DNA from *Macrauchenia* 
>specimens or trying to elucidate the dietary preferences of pre-contact Moa 
>birds, that's more palaeontology. If you are talking about how humans 
>interacted with animals (extinct or otherwise) in the past, that is 
>archaeozoology. The boundaries of archaeozoology as a field are obviously 
>fuzzy, but human-animal interactions (hunting, domestication, religious 
>significance) are the main scientific focus. 
> 
> 
>ÂÂ
> 
> 
>ÂÂThe second parameter is the boundary between what is a human-like animal 
>and what species or subspecies we can call "human". I would think that stone 
>tool use is the cut-off most useful for archaeologists. So far Homo 
>(?Australopithecus) habilis is the oldest 'handy man'. Archaeologists are just 
>as interested, if not more so, in manmade tools than they are in actual human 
>bodily remains. Archaeology is a subset of anthropology (at least, that's the 
>way it's taught in academia), and anthropology is focused on human * culture * 
>to a greater degree than human physiology or biomechanics or other more 
>"objective" measures of man. 
> 
> 
>ÂÂ
> 
> 
>ÂÂBasically, the question you should ask yourself if you have trouble 
>identifying whether a particular paper or other piece of science is 
>archaeology or not is - are the authors applying archaeological principles? 
>Are they interested in answering questions about human _culture_? If they are 
>interested in the genetic or morphological differences between Neanderthal and 
>Sapiens or Sapiens and Erectus, I would be less likely to call it archaeology, 
>although the conclusions of that research would no doubt be informative to 
>archaeologists. But studying early sapiens artwork, or Neanderthal tool use, 
>those could be considered archaeology.
> 
>ÂÂ
> 
> 
>ÂÂSomeone who actually gets paid to study this stuff should really chime in 
>here, and please correct me if I got something wrong. But to my understanding, 
>the different fields aren't necessarily mutually exclusive but have utterly 
>different focuses (determined arbitrarily by us, of course). Archaeologists 
>are fundamentally interested in the _human_; their engagement in paleontology 
>is in the service of understanding something about human beings. Paleontology 
>is actually somewhat fuzzier - is studying very recently extinct forms of life 
>such as the thylacine or dodo really paleontology or is it just zoology? That 
>boundary is arguably much harder to draw. Hope this helps feed thought. 
> 
> 
>ÂÂ
> 
> 
>ÂÂThomas Yazbeck
> 
> 
>ÂÂ
> 
> 
>ÂÂ
> 
> ________________________________ 
> From: dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu 
> <dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu> on behalf of Poekilopleuron 
> <dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz>
> Sent: Monday, December 14, 2020 2:32 AM
> To: dinosaur-l@usc.edu <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>; tholtz@umd.edu <tholtz@umd.edu>
> Subject: [dinosaur] Paleontology v. archaeology 
> Â
> 
> 
>ÂÂ
> Good day!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So where is the strict boudary between the two? Is it that archaeologists are 
> studying only hominid fossils and their environment (say up to 3 million 
> years old)? Paleontologists, OTOH, can study fossils as recent as 12 000 
> years? Thank you for clarification, in advance! Tom
> 
> 
> 
> 
>