Archeozoo

I just came across a great reference site for zooarchaeology that might be useful to skelephiles of other sorts. It's called Archeozoo, and it's available in English and French.

It's got news, articles, lists of collections, a forum and more. I haven't had the time to explore it in depth yet, but it looks like there's lots of great information. If you're a zooarchaeologist or in a related field, you can sign up to contribute your own articles as well.

It's starting to look like I need to create a links page, doesn't it . . .

Bone Art: Kate MacDowell

Thanks to a friend's StumbleUpon bookmarks, I came across the incredible ceramic sculptures of Kate MacDowell a day or two ago.

Notice the human skeleton. She has several more along the same lines, as well as other beautiful, surreal pieces. Songbirds perching inside a pair of human lungs, literal clay pigeons, and other wonderful things. Go look at her portfolio, you will be amazed.

Virtual Zooarchaeology of the Arctic

Thanks to my friend Tim's Elfshot archaeology blog, I have a fantastic zooarchaeology resource to share with you: the Virtual Zooarchaeology of the Arctic Project.

The site describes itself thusly:

The Virtual Zooarchaeology of the Arctic Project (VZAP) is a virtual, interactive, osteological reference collection for the study of northern vertebrates. VZAP is a dynamic natural history archive which allows students and researchers to examine the complete skeletal anatomies of multiple bird, mammal, and fish species in both 2D and 3D.

You'll need to download and install the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in for 3D stuff (it's free), and the site doesn't like Firefox very much (so use Safari or, if you must, Explorer), but once you've sorted that out, you're in for a treat.

The collection consists of both 2D and 3D images--the 3D ones will download for viewing in Adobe Acrobat.

It'll be fun to watch this site grow as more and more specimens are added, and I plan to make full use of the foxes and other canids as I (very slowly) work on revising, re-writing and rendering useful my honours thesis from a million years ago (titled North American Canid Osteology).

Top 50 Archaeology Blogs

Why a list called 50 Best Blogs for Archaeology Students would show up on a blog for Radiology Technician Schools, I do not know, but it's a good list and worth looking at, and besides, my friend Tim's blog Elfshot: Sticks and Stones is listed at number 8.

I find it interesting that, while there are quite a few general archaeology blogs, or archaeology and anthropology blogs, and some blogs on specific topics or parts of the world, there is no zooarchaeology blog. Perhaps someone out there is doing one and it's either too new or too little read to show up on a top 50 list. Oh wait, someone is doing one. It's me. Seriously, though, if anyone reading this (does anyone read this?) knows of any other zooarch blogs or osteology blogs, or blogs dealing significantly with bones, drop me a line or leave a comment and I'll start a blogroll in the sidebar.

Bird Bones

I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like there are fewer online references for osteology and zoorchaeology than there were back in the 90s when I was an archaeology student. That said, I have found some really great sites for bird osteology.

The first site I found is the Bird Skull Collection. It's maintained by the Experimental Zoology Group of Wageningen University and is, as the title indicates, a collection of bird skulls, all photographed from multiple views. Obviously, not every bird species in the world is included here, but the collection is vast and continually growing, and the images are clear. In addition to the skulls, there are full skeletons for some species, and even a selection of 3D images. There's even a quiz so you can test your knowledge of bird skulls (I'll leave that for when I've brushed up my skills a bit).

The links page on the above site then led me to the Seabird Osteology Pages, another site from the Netherlands. The images are mostly skulls, but the scope has expanded to include other bones, too. It's a less comprehensive page than the Bird Skull Collection--as it must be, focusing only on seabirds--but the quality of the photographs is top-notch. So if you're interested in seabirds, this is an essential site.

As for books, the main reference still seems to be Avian Osteology by B. Miles Gilbert (buy from amazon). A promising-looking book I haven't actually got my hands on yet is Manual for the Identification of Bird Bones from Archaeological Sites by Alan Cohen and Dale Serjeantson (buy from amazon). Another useful reference, especially if you're also interested in tracking and observing living birds, is Bird Tracks and Sign by Mark Elbroch (buy from amazon). It's got a decent section on bird skulls, but is limited to North America.

There are also assorted smaller sources and monographs on specific topics. One such is On the Osteology of the Striges. [Strigidae and Bubonidae] by R.W. Shufeldt (buy from amazon). It's a reprint from the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society from 1900. It's got illustrations of varying utility, but I haven't read it yet, so I can't say how good the text is. I've slowly building an osteology/zooarchaeology library for some time (emphasis on "slowly"), and I'll mention new books as I find them.