00:00.28 Alex And we are back with archeo animals and today we're talking about the archaeology of of amphibians frogs toads all that fun weird stuff that I don't really know that much about so the first part we talked a bit about what amphibians broadly are. And what makes their bones for lack of a better word so peculiar. But what about specific species so kind of it's not really case studies. But I guess they kind of are let's just take a quick look through some amphibians of note from around the world. And I feel like the best way to start that off is to go with one of the biggest ones the chinese giant salamander so you have 1 of the largest amphibians in the world and. 00:46.88 Cpt Granarius Andrea Stavi news 00:54.30 Alex Kind of ties into what we were saying in the last part of last part that it's unfortunately an endangated species due to the fact that there's a lot of Habitat loss and exploitation as it's often used not only as a food source but also as part of traditional Chinese Medicine. And that also just reminded me and I feel like with amphibians in particular they more more likely than a lot of other species or you know taxa get hit with Habitat Loss more. So just because of the places they usually end up living in. 01:31.90 Cpt Granarius And then I guess the thing with Amphibians again. They such sort of niche environments that they like to live in which incidentally is also why they're so great for Pale Environmentalal reconstruction. 01:36.20 Alex Yeah. Yeah, So unfortunately that ends up putting them on kind of endangered species lists more so than maybe other types of animals. So yeah, obviously you know conservation is quite important for Amphibians but particularly for the giant. The the Chinese giant salamander sorry that name is a mouthful. Um, but what's really particularly interesting about the Chinese giant salamander is that it's actually considered to be a living fossil which I don't even know if we've really talked about living fossils on this podcast I mean Technically. It's not really zoo archaeology but I feel like a count. 02:19.58 Cpt Granarius I Guess like but my gut reaction is that's not very nice, calling someone a living fossils. Um I know it. 02:26.89 Alex Yeah, but it's it's an ah, ecologically really important thing isn't it so a living fossil is basically a living member of a tax sum that's been existent for an extremely long time like. Extremely long time thousands and thousands and millions of years and yet they still retain much of their characteristics so they haven't really evolved or changed that much. So for example, All'll um Celacanths I think are ah probably ah the most well-known. Ah, living fossil as a and so yeah, the chinese giant salamander is considered one of these living fossils particularly of the family crypto rock broc day. This is why I need to do somono. 03:17.36 Cpt Granarius Um, cur to braki day. 03:22.70 Alex It'scrypted to guess technically. 03:27.20 Cpt Granarius Um, okay, our next one is also mouthful ah is the axolotal um, be stomachmer mixium. Okay, it wasn't too bad. Um, which is a salamander that is unique in the fact that it remains aquatic rather than going through the sort of. Metamorphosis so to speak that other amphibians go through um the name axolotal actually comes from the deityolotal who was worshipped here the Aztec Empire where axolotals oh if that's becoming a drinking game now. Um, where like um. 04:04.25 Cpt Granarius So under the aztec empire these creatures were commonly eaten and still were eaten today. 1 of the most interesting characteristics I guess of axolotals from an ah zooeological perspective is the fact that it is able to regenerate various body parts whether it be limbs tails. Spinal cord. Even. Eyes and parts of the brain chisome I think. 04:25.64 Alex You It's interesting because again Amphibians are a very funny tax on taxa I Guess really in that they have these unique characteristics and again because you know I haven't really worked with. Per se zoo. Archeologically there's all these kind of weird characteristics that I do not even sure really show up in the zoo Archeological record I mean so before we were talking about. You know this process of ossification and you know how the bones. Go from being cartolligenous in most amphibians to becoming ossified and kind of you know the proper bones that we see in vertebrates and you know I I didn't really look but I'm not sure if there's really been able to find evidence of say like cadpos in the zoar Archeological record. And don't think they'd survive very well unless the conditions were very specific. 05:24.58 Cpt Granarius Yes, I guess you get like you get a very aerobic environment and like a waterlocked samples or sub but us. 05:34.47 Alex It's yeah I mean I guess we have stories of a lot of very strange things surviving I mean we had a few episodes episodes ago. We talked about that was it a fish of fossilized fish that the. Heart was still fossilized and they were able to recover it and this was like ages ago folks? Um, but you know there's is our galaxys funny there is if you have that like 1 less than 1% chance of the. 05:50.72 Cpt Granarius Oh I've so. 06:08.63 Alex Environment being just so you you'd be surprised at the things that can actually survive So I guess I mean I'm trying to think about car cartilage and whether or not that something cartilaginists could survive not easily. But. 06:24.68 Cpt Granarius Um I guess maybe if for started to ossify because it moves not quite the same but you know sometimes in Cattlean horses. You do get some of the ossified sort of cartilage in the ribs and you do get that a paly but then. 06:36.16 Alex Yeah. 06:42.94 Cpt Granarius Ah. 06:43.20 Alex It's funny. It's weird and so the thing about the Ex Lotl is that it it goes through a very similar process. So if a limb was you know cut off for some reason or a tail the way that they regenerate these body parts at least the the things like limbs and tails that have. Bone is that it does a very similar process where you know it. Ah I believe it goes it develops through the osteoblasts and slowly but surely ossifies into a new body part. Ah it was. Tried reading this to kind of be able to explain it and then realize it was extremely complicated and it was probably easier just to say they weregenerate because that is ultimately what they do but I guess realistically you could. Potentially fine and Axolotl remains that were maybe partially regenerate. 07:39.60 Cpt Granarius Um, yeah, guess like I mean not quite limbs but you have like some Lizards that can regenerate tails but I don't think they can regrow lost limbs compared to our friend. The Oxal axolotal. 07:56.44 Alex Axolotto X A La what. 07:57.46 Cpt Granarius You You know? what's you know? what's funny about the ax aotal. It is super cute. So if anyone listening doesn't know well then Axolotal looks like please look it up. She looks like a pokemon or something. 08:11.31 Alex The Axolotl used to be a character in animal crossing it was a and you know it was. It's funny that you say it's funny because it was he was a comedian whose name now escapes me which makes me feel bad. 08:16.38 Cpt Granarius Of course. 08:29.36 Alex Because I thought he was funny I'm so sorry, forgive me whoever you are forgive me animal crossing fans I'm not a true fan despite sinking like 900 hours into that game. But yeah, they're very cute I I think they're adorable and I wish we lived in a place where we came across axolotl's zoo archeologically. That would be cool. 08:51.91 Cpt Granarius Basically it kind of looks like a an an in a newt but it's pale pink So like a naked newt and it's got some sort of headgear going like fluffy head care. 09:03.40 Alex And the way that they're their mouths are set. It looks like they're smiling all the time. Ah, that's so cute. They are really cute Bo We should do an episode where it's just the zochiology of cute things. 09:06.56 Cpt Granarius Just like then the goggly eyes. 09:18.35 Cpt Granarius Yeah I mean if anyone wants to hear that please write to us tweet to us. No, we'll get going. 09:26.37 Alex Tweet at us send up a carrier Pigeon let us know because again we will run out of episode ideas at some point. 09:36.34 Cpt Granarius I mean it's only been what nearly five years now 09:42.82 Alex Yeah, you know we're gonna make it a 10 anyway, not moving that far from the ah the home of the ex lotl another amphibian from Mexico is the big foot leopard frog. 10:00.82 Cpt Granarius Liho Baist make up all the. 10:01.70 Alex Also known as the big footed leopard frog so got variety there and I guess the theme for for this section has been like big boys because the big foot leopard frog based on its name you could probably guess. They are massive frogs. They are so massive that a single frog can provide three hundred grams of flesh which is extremely important as these frogs have historically been used as subsistence. So. It's a big. Big chunky boy hecking big boy and it's actually quite interesting though. So zoo archeological research that has been undertaken at the site of Laguna De Magdalena in Halisko Mexico has revealed the importance of these frogs. 10:37.59 Cpt Granarius Hacking big boy. 10:55.21 Alex In the diets of the indigenous peoples during ah both the pre-hispanic and the colonial occupations of this site and it seems like the exploitation of these frogs was at its most intensive during the latter periods during the colonial occupation. And you know we talk a lot about how you kind of interpret things as archaeology so it probably doesn't come as a surprise to know that this was mostly interpreted due to the predominance of high limb bones as it was likely that these were the part of the frog that was. The most choiced for cuisine and similarly that's kind of how frogs are still eaten today and another kind of evidence that they've used to have this interpretation of the importance of the frog is that. The frog has seems to be used a lot in mortuary figures and iconography and other kinds of material culture which is always really important to know Simona have you ever eaten frogs. 12:03.63 Cpt Granarius No. 12:07.19 Alex I Mean you're not missing much. They're not I've never really found them that exciting although I might have just had like really not well prepared frogs but they do. 12:18.22 Cpt Granarius Ah, because I ah seem to have heard somewhere that they taste like chicken but it just seems like the most meats like everyone says oh it tastes like chicken that think I've heard that a variety of different things is's like like fishy chicken. 12:26.75 Alex Um, it. It does though? Yeah I mean it does though like it's just kind of again I might have just had really bland frog because I I think it was kind of just like it just tasted like boiled chicken. Which I was just like that's whatever, but it's interesting to kind of you know it I didn't even think about it until we were doing this episode like of course you would if people were eating Frogs. You would find mostly the hind limb bones because that's what you eat you eat the frog legs and. I Guess yeah, they are kind of they pretty meaty I Guess you know they got a jump. They got muscle and now just not the biggest frog food fan I'm a frog fan but not a food fan of frogs. 13:17.70 Cpt Granarius Yeah, you like drugs alive in their ponds. 13:23.38 Alex Yes I don't I don't want them in my zoareological assemblage I don't want them on my plate I want them in a pawn somewhere having ah a great time. 13:36.17 Cpt Granarius I Second that. 13:39.82 Alex But yeah I mean it's again, It's also one of those things that I wanted to kind of bring up the the material culture of the Bigfoot Leopard Frog because again given the fact that not everyone's trained in identifying amphibians that they're. Kind of hard to identify and to be honest and we haven't we haven't really touched upon this but you know it's the case of a lot of these type of Bones. They're fragile. They're easily kind of destroyed or otherwise misplaced from the archaeological record so having the material culture to back it up. Is really important I mean we we do it for most other things really when we talk about like cultural depictions of animals and their importance. You know you have the zoarchiological record but you also have the kind of material record as well to back it up. But I think with Amphibians and with. Animals that are easily missed in the archaeological record I think it's quite important that we utilize these things. 14:41.61 Cpt Granarius Yeah, because I guess a lot of it comes down as well to your excavation strategy because if you if you're not taking any environmental samples. You're you're not going to find Amphibian remains because who's gonna dig something and spot like a frog radio owner at the bottom of their ditch or Somethingre. Oo. And hand collect that Way. It's very unlikely to happen unless you're literally got your face like in the dirt. So like really it only comes through sort of the processing or like environmental samples if those are taken. 15:13.70 Alex Yeah, so it's it can be tricky and again I think that's the theme of this episode. It's Tricky. It's hard. They're annoying if they find them. But. If you do find them if you are able to identify them and you're actually able to utilize them to their potential. They can really inform the paleo Environmental history I guess. 15:44.46 Cpt Granarius So they're they're as as difficult as they can be rewarding. 15:46.23 Alex Yeah. 15:52.13 Alex Yes, That's ah, a much more succinct way of what I was trying to say so I think we will take a quick break and then we will co to again. No One said it. It's just us Buts Whatever it's our favorite part of the show. Ah, case Studies. So we'll see you then. 16:10.69 Cpt Granarius Um, yeah, then. 16:13.82 archpodnet Good stuff.