Archaeozoology has its origins in the branch of archaeology that studies how people survived in prehistory (before written records were made), what food they ate, and how they obtained it - what researchers call human subsistence economics. But it has come to mean a lot more than that.
It includes identifying the processes of preservation and deterioration of the bones, the study of what people had to do to get their food, and how they maintained this food.
It also includes what effects people hunting certain animals had on that animal’s populations, what kinds of food these people ate and why, butchery processes, and other related issues.
The archaeozoology laboratory was founded in 1987 by the then Director of the National Museum of New Zealand, Dr John Yaldwyn. He appointed Dr Foss Leach as honorary curator of archaeological fauna.
The laboratory and associated storage facility is designed to collect and study collections of fauna from the Pacific and New Zealand region. A particular emphasis is the study of marine food gathering behaviour and issues relating to environmental impact over long periods.
Our archaeological faunal collections come from Pacific and New Zealand archaeological sites. They range back in time some 6000 years. The material to which we compare excavated samples in order to identify them consists of boxed and displayed bones from about 400 species of Pacific Islands fishes, as well as shells, land fauna, and turtles.
Due to their importance to various communities, multiple specimens (100-200 individuals) of particular species have been routinely collected. These include blue cod, barracouta, and greenbone. Some forty measurements are made on each specimen and these are used to estimate the length and weight that the live fish would have been. These analyses have resulted in a number of publications.
The honorary curator of archaeological fauna, Dr Foss Leach, retired in June 2002.