About this Research Topic

Background

The interaction between human and animals was both diverse and complex in prehistoric times. An investigation of human-animal relationships may provide valuable insights into the evolutionary trajectory of human behaviors. Since the mid-twentieth century, many archaeological studies have been aimed at exploring the roles animals have played in ancient societies, ranging from subsistence, economic to social and spiritual dimensions. Nevertheless, it is still safe to say that the overwhelming majority of these works have focused on sites from Africa, Europe, and near Eastern Asia, with sites from East Asia largely unexplored. Moreover, it seems that zooarchaeological studies in China, especially those of the Paleolithic period, have largely narrowed their scopes by seeing animals only in terms of sources of protein and calories, a type of bias that frequently results in incomplete or wrong interpretations. Animals in archaeological contexts contain valuable information about site formation histories, ecology, competition, and ecosystemic integration of humans.

The proposed Research Topic attempts to redress this geographic imbalance in current zooarchaeological analysis and take into account the entire spectrum of human–animal relationships in prehistoric society. We aim to bring together a series of articles that outline current methods for understanding the significance of animals to humans over the course of prehistory in China, a key region in East Asia archaeology. To achieve good modeling of ancient uses of animals and their products, we will not limit ourselves to the reconstruction of diet and procurement strategies of prehistoric humans; rather, we would like to concentrate also on areas that have received less attention in zooarchaeology; e.g., social and symbolic roles of animals. We would also like to see development in the use of animals as a source of paleoecological and paleobiological information, with emphasis on their impact on human adaptation and lifestyles.

The Research Topic calls for original manuscripts that illustrate the scope of archaeology and the earth sciences in relation to the interaction between human and animals in prehistoric China. We are particularly interested in but not limited to the following themes：Reviews that summarize the current state of the art as well as prospects for future research of faunal remains in archaeological sites; methodological articles that present the cutting-edge approaches in the studies of past human-animal interactions; case studies that focus on the investigation of prehistoric relations between human and animal in key sub-regions of China; in addition to osteological studies, research integrating zooarchaeological and information from other materials and disciplines are encouraged, including isotopic, aDNA, geometric morphometric and other up-to-date techniques to reconstruct prehistoric human-animal relations.

Keywords: Zooarchaeology, Taphonomy, Subsistence, Human-animal interactions, Prehistoric, China

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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