"… the book is about ‘interpretive social zooarchaeology’, focusing on Central European early farming (Neolithic) communities. Marciniak adopts a taphonomic approach, as do a growing number of zooarchaeologists today, and looks at the ‘horizontal distribution of faunal remains’ — the latter being something which is undertaken less often than it is when considering other archaeological material such as stone tools. As such it is not a new approach, but it is a new attempt to combine approaches which are frequently considered separately…there is one thing which cannot be denied: it amply illustrates the complexity of the faunal record — a complexity which is often overlooked when dealing with the post- Pleistocene record. It shows that social as well as economic reconstruction may be possible, that faunal data can record something more than the environment and what was eaten.
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- Katie Boyle, Environmental Archaeology
"[This is] a bold and refreshing attempt by Arkadiusz Marciniak to re-energize
and broaden studies of animals in the early and middle Neolithic of central Europe. I see much still to do as we try to come to grips with all aspects of keeping, managing, eating and thinking animals in the early to middle Neolithic, but this book is a significant contribution to that process.
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- Alasdair Whittle, Cardiff School of History and Archaeology