Zooarchaeology Lab Sheffield

Lovely to welcome former Osteoarchaeology student Suzanne Gee back to the lab during our RICHeS Open Day!

Now working as a freelance osteoarchaeologist, she visited to refresh her zooarchaeology skills. Always proud to see our alumni thriving. Come back soon, Suzanne!

A bittersweet farewell to our brilliant colleague Stephanie Baron, forced out of our team by the University’s assault on archaeology.
We’ll miss her hugely — her work keeping our collections alive has been invaluable — but we’re glad she’s found a new role in the Library. They’re lucky to have her.

Wild Birds of the Italian Middle Ages: Diet, Environment and Society Wild birds are intrinsically associated with our perception of the Middle Ages. They often feature in heraldic designs, paintings, and books of hours; few human activities typify the medieval perio...

A&K n.26 is out now!

This post highlights the work of Chiara Corbino, a former Marie Curie Fellow with us. The featured paper was central to Chiara's fellowship project, but there’s much more to share about her work… Watch this space! www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

🦜📚 A&K no. 25 celebrates the bird-focused books of Dale Serjeantson—essential reading for anyone studying bird bones from archaeological sites.

A few years ago we were proud to honour Dale’s work with a conference in Sheffield. The proceedings will appear in a future issue of Alive & Kicking.

Ever wondered what that mystery bone from your garden might be? Need to refresh your ID skills for animal or archaeobotanical remains? Work in an archaeological unit and want to use state-of-the-art zooarchaeology and archaeobotany collections? We got you covered!!

🦴🌱 Sheffield RICHeS Bioarchaeology Collections Open Days!

🌾 Archaeobotany: 10 & 24 Feb; 10 & 24 Mar; 14 & 28 Apr; 12 & 26 May
🦴 Zooarchaeology: 17 Feb; 3, 17 & 31 Mar; 21 Apr; 5 & 19 May

To book contact us at:
Archaeobotany → c.longford@sheffield.ac.uk
Zooarchaeology → l.salvagno@sheffield.ac.uk

YouTube video by Mediterranean Zooarchaeology Umberto Albarella | Mare Nostrum: Pursuing zooarchaeology in a world in turmoil

This was a great conference to be involved with. The stuff I talked about wasn't necessarily pleasant, but I'm glad that I had the opportunity to discuss it. Many thanks to Abu Siddiq et al. for the invitation. @zooarchlabsheff.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFJv... #zooarchaeology

📸 New kit alert! 📸
Thanks to RICHeS funding, we have added a new Leica camera and 3D analysis software to our Bioarchaeology collections 🙌

Perfect for archaeobotany imaging 🌾 but also incredibly valuable for zooarchaeological research, particularly for exploring taphonomic factors.

The much-awaited A&K no. 24 is out! 🎉
It showcases the work of Angela Trentacoste, former Sheffield PhD student and now involved in countless exciting projects. This paper builds on her PhD research 👉 doi:10.1179/1461957115Y.0000000015

The International Council of Archaeozoology www.alexandriaarchive.org/icaz/ has published a statement to condemn the Gaza genocide. You can download it here (Newsletter p.7): www.alexandriaarchive.org/icaz/publica...
@archagainstaparth.bsky.social
@blacktrowel.bsky.social
@icaz-news.bsky.social

Really nice first day of the Mediterranean Zooarchaeology Symposium www.artuklu.edu.tr/medzooarch/a...

For A&K n.23, we are pleased to move to the Pacific Ocean for this interesting paper about mass fish capture! Check it out!

👉https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arco.5320

Back to hands-on work after our move and reunited with a long-time freezer resident: Mr Badger 🦡

Once alive, now honoured for the contribution he’ll make to science. After a well-earned hot bath, Mr Badger will soon join our Zooarchaeology Research Collection.

CW: images show a deceased animal

Widening the market. Strontium isotope analysis on cattle teeth from Owslebury (Hampshire, UK) highlights changes in livestock supply between the Iron Age and the Roman period 87Sr/86Sr isotopic analysis was performed on 95 cattle teeth from the Iron Age and Roman rural site of Owslebury (Hampshire). This constitutes one of …

A&K n.22. This work comes from a collaboration between two of our former Marie Curie postdocs, Claudia Minniti and Silvia Valenzuela-Lamas, now in Rome and Barcelona. They continue to be close collaborators and played a key role in building our team. Enjoy! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Late Pleistocene and Holocene Hunter–Gatherers in the Eastern Highlands of South Africa and Lesotho: A Faunal Interpretation Recent research in the eastern highlands of South Africa and Lesotho has increased our knowledge of Late Pleistocene and Holocene human activities in …

As part of our A&K series (n.21) we are keen to promote the vibrancy of zooarchaeology across the world. This is a classic paper based on South Africa and Lesotho by Ina Plug, the inspirational pioneer of African zooarchaeology. 👉https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440396901533

Postdoc position available 👉https://www.fu-berlin.de/universitaet/beruf-karriere/jobs/english/GK-PRAEHIST-WiMi-Equiden.html

🐎 Excited to share a new project led by friend and colleague Maaike Groot at Freie Universität Berlin: “Management, supply and mobility of equids in the northwestern Roman Empire” (DFG-funded).
The project explores how horses and mules supported the Roman army.

Congratulations Maaike!!!

Size and shape of Greek Late Neolithic livestock suggest the existence of multiple and distinctive animal husbandry cultures In this paper we discuss domestic livestock morphometric data from the Late Neolithic Greek regions of Macedonia and Thessaly. Six sites are considere…

The wait is over 😉 A&K no. 20 is here!
Featuring Giorgos Kazantzis, former Sheffield MSc and PhD student, now researching and teaching in Greece. Still part of our team, always fondly remembered.
This innovative paper from his PhD deserves far more attention: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#EAAforDemocracy Democracy is at stake at EAA: all archaeologists should be very concerned
A Special Meeting for members will take place on Jan 9th 2026 about the dysfunctioning of the current EAA leadership. See below:

What did the Stonehenge builders eat? New study to reveal neolithic diet A new research project will offer new insight in Neolithic life by investigating the diet of the builders of Stonehenge. The findings will also allow researchers to reconstruct the surrounding woodlan...

sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/...

Middle Saxon Animal Husbandry in East Anglia Pam Crabtree, 2012. 'Middle Saxon Animal Husbandry in East Anglia', East Anglian Archaeology 143

A&K n.19 spotlights the work of Pam Crabtree, one of the most influential zooarchaeologists of the past few decades 🦴

Best known for her work at West Stow, this issue highlights her lesser-known but vital research on middle Saxon sites. Enjoy! eaareports.org.uk/publication/...

Animalising the Islamic Green Revolution: zooarchaeology and socio-ecological change in the Islamic Far West The impact of the medieval Arab expansion on agriculture in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean was defined by Andrew M. Watson, 1974…

Congratulations to our former student and still great friend of our team, Marcos García García, for his very interesting new output! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Yesterday, as part of our RICHeS open day, we were delighted to welcome Dr Liz Quinlan from the University of Exeter 🐟
Liz’s project explores medieval to early modern freshwater and migratory fisheries, and our fish bone collection provides a valuable resource to support this exciting research.

Great to welcome a former MSc student back to the Zooarch collection today 🦴

Alex Waterman completed his MSc with us a few years ago and now works as a field archaeologist at PCAS Archaeology. He made the most of the RICHeS open days to refresh his zooarch skills. Bravo, Alex!

We’re excited to share this fantastic conference, kindly brought to our attention by our former MSc Osteo student Klaudia Kvockova, who is now pursuing her PhD 🎓

This is a brilliant opportunity to meet like-minded researchers and discover exciting projects. Don’t miss out! www.iansa.eu/cea

Fantastic last day of @sheffielducu.bsky.social strike. Great speech by our president @davidhayes4.bsky.social. Disgust for the behaviour of the #Sheffield Uni management is growing. Great support from Students' Union, @greenparty.org.uk. Students & staff united in a common front. @ucu.org.uk

No lockout for University of Sheffield staff UCU members have been standing up against the continual cutting and restructuring of the last several years which has significantly damaged the University’s international standing, the quality of educ...

www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no...

@ucu.org.uk striking staff at the Uni of Sheffield must deal with a confrontational management showing no interest in a fair-running Uni, but the students are with us! Join our mass picket (Arts Tower on Fri morning) & rally at 12 (Student Union's Concourse) @sheffielducu.bsky.social

Cattle husbandry in the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands: chronological developments and regional differences in cattle frequencies, management, size and shape Cattle are the dominant species in most archaeological sites in the Netherlands during the Iron Age and Roman period. However, there are differences in the relative importance of cattle and in how cat...

A&K n.18! We were lucky to host Maaike Groot in Sheffield on a Marie Curie Fellowship a few years ago. A leading expert on Roman husbandry, she’s now building an outstanding zooarch lab at Freie Universität Berlin.
This piece is one of several outputs from her Sheffield work doi.org/10.1515/PZ-2...

Camelids in ancient Andean societies: A review of the zooarchaeological evidence South American Camelids (SAC) have occupied a central role in the development of Andean societies, both for ancient hunter-gatherers and for more rece…

Missed Alive & Kicking? Wait no more!
With A&K no. 17, we highlight the work of the brilliant Willie Mengoni, whose research has hugely advanced our understanding of camelid domestication in South America. 🦙✨. Here is the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...