Introduction

Abstract

This chapter introduces the book, its themes, aims, organization, and content of its chapters. In the process, it reviews the relevance, scope, and context of zooarchaeology within contemporary archaeology. This is a methodologically focused book that concentrates on vertebrate zooarchaeology, especially analysis of mammal bones and teeth and hopefully will prove useful to students and researchers investigating a variety of cases from a range of theoretical perspectives. The chapter offers definitions of terms used in the rest of the book and offers some background on the author’s theoretical perspectives. Given that zooarchaeology is an emerging field of theory and practice with a rapidly proliferating literature, the book’s main aims are to develop a framework for organizing present knowledge and integrating new findings, and to provide the reader with an array of tools for engaging with zooarchaeological research problems.