00:00.00 Alex Hello and welcome to archeo animals the podcast all about zoareology this is episode fifty six paleo environmentalmental reconstruction what it is and what does it do I'm your host Alex O Patrick and with me as always. 00:18.29 Cpt Granarius Simmon of Holanga. 00:19.72 Alex So yeah, we are kind of we kind of led into this topic but we are talking about palevironmental reconstruction. Finally, even though I guess we were kind of hinting at it in the last couple episodes I mean we talked a lot about different animals. You know from your moist. Moist frogs and toads of amphibians to kind of scaly snakes and Lizards of reptiles and finally our most recent episode the teeniest tiniest little mice in bowl that make up the kind of Mammalian Microfana And. Up. Yeah. 00:56.51 Cpt Granarius Because it was all a ploy gentlemen. Um, because I mean um, while there at ah. 01:04.90 archpodnet I state wait just sorry some on it and Alex you just want to finish off that sentence again. It just sounded like cut off like midway. 01:13.70 Alex I Already don't remember what I said. 01:16.17 archpodnet It would right? take it from about the the last episode you just did and finally last episode. 01:25.94 Alex And finally in our last episode we talked about the tiniest little mice and vole that make up Mammalian microfauna. 01:37.28 Cpt Granarius And that everyone was all a ploy heard here first because I mean while a lot of the speeches that we covered so in the last few episodes. Ah you know were speeches that we've not previously covered. There was a secret reason. Why we decided to dedicate the entirety of the last few episodes to those specific teensy little species that I like to call the the micro Arche Zoo archeology because Surprise secret Miniseries boom. 02:09.46 Alex Yeah, it's actually been a secret many series for paleo environmentalronmental reconstruction and boy am I going to trip over saying that multiple times in this episode because it's kind of a mouthful. Paleo-environmental reconstruction. 02:26.33 Cpt Granarius Ancient environment as well. It boils down to I mean the paleo environment. Sorry if you hear some some tippy tapping the the bit dog as the side it a very clumsy climb on the bench there you go welcome Tell us more about mice and rats. 02:44.36 Alex River. 02:45.49 Cpt Granarius Yeah, yes, always opinionated that one. Um, but yeah as we have noted in previous episodes. Um, a lot of the animals we've covered so your Amphibians reptiles small mammals and births can be used as an indicator of environmental characteristics. Um, and they wait they ah they may or may not have changed over time sorry that the my dog was proceeding to try and lick the plate of the Nutella wrap I just had and boy no. 03:19.10 Alex So yeah, these kind of indicators are really extremely useful for paleovironmental reconstruction. But you know what exactly is paleovironmental reconstruction now Simone has kind of alluded to it unsurprisingly has to do with the past. And the past environment so we can use a variety of evidence from archaeological sites to somewhat accurately kind of sort of reconstruct the past paleo environment of a given site that we're working on now most of the evidence which is. Useful to paleoenvironmental reconstruction comes from the environmental evidence or ecofax which is largely recovered from environmental soil sampling. 04:07.27 Cpt Granarius Yeah, been in full as a quick, very quick aside promise. Um, for those who are not familiar with soil sampling I mean it's pretty much in the name as it's ah the collection of samples of soil from a given archaeological Horizon archeological features you know, depending on what kind of where in the world. You. 04:20.34 Alex So. 04:24.74 Cpt Granarius Practice your archaeology and the soil samples are then processed for eco fact and sometimes artifact recovery and to be honest, it can take a variety of forms depending on what sort of evidence you're after so you can do so all sorts of fancy like Geome geochemical analysis. You can sample specifically to get. Pollen. But I mean largely um, soil sampling is usually well just dirt that is saved either dry or with the aid of Water. So. 04:51.73 Alex And it's so much fun. It's a great workout. Actually if you're serving especially when you use those really big sieves and you're just kind of like shaking it back and forth I've never done the water one which I've heard is horrible. From people who've done it. 05:10.95 Cpt Granarius I Mean this is also like quite manually intensive as well. But basically there's no leg day just a lot of arm day. Um, but ah once you go through the beautiful process of environmental ah soil sampling and processing. 05:12.42 Alex Yeah, and you're wet. 05:26.44 Cpt Granarius You will get as we mentioned a variety of ecofas that will range from seeds to grains Mollusks all the very small animal remains that we've been mentioning and let's not forget the charcoal which I will use as ah as a quick shout out to the archeobotanist out there that can. Get a tiny piece of charcoal put it under a microscope and tell you which tree it's come from because that's just wizardy. 05:52.33 Alex Yeah I mean and I think in particular if you're working on British sites I feel like charcoal kind of all over the place maybe because I've worked in a lot of like iron age sites. So you get your charcoal at the same time as you're getting. Lots and lots of iron slag. Um, yeah, boy, it's a lot of lot of that coming out with the ground. Not very exciting to me. Oh That's wild. 06:19.77 Cpt Granarius Yeah, but of like being able to identify it because of course the charcoal like anded like it was. It was a tree before because it's been so sort of the structure has been so distorted by also the heating process and still being able to sell. Oh yeah, no okay that that came from ah, an oak tree that I. Just tip my hat off to you you. 06:37.37 Alex That's yeah that I I don't actually believe that science I Do think it's some kind of witchcraft because I just I don't I don't believe that you can do that I'm sorry as someone who's seen archeological Charcoal There's no way. 06:50.62 Cpt Granarius Okay, the first hot take of the episode I'm I'm sure but I'm sure that's it the in in the bing goes somewhere. 06:54.43 Alex My conspiracy theory. 07:02.10 Alex Archaeo Botany is not real. That's my my conspiracy theory for this episode. 07:05.18 Cpt Granarius Um, um, and of course well we're on the subject of archebotany well I'm wildly aware if this not an arcubotany podcast but it is something that is very helpful and indeed one of the main indicators like evidence that we use for paleo environmental reconstruction. Um the seeds. That you may be able to get from your soil samples especially of the wild flora can be quite useful in determining. Ah the sort of environment ah during which so the investigated time period um may have looked like so you know to make a very sort of broad example. Finding water-loving plants will suggest a damp environment which I guess in Britain won't say much but it gets more specific than that. But. 07:49.14 Alex Yeah, you know it's It's interesting as Well. I think you know we haven't again really talked about archeobotany because it's not really a part of our podcast. But I think archeobotany and Zoaraeology go pretty much hand in hand in a lot of ways I Mean. You know, obviously this palevironmental reconstruction stuff a lot of zooar archeology goes towards kind of a broader environmental archeology that would also encompass. Ah archeobotany. So it. It goes hand in hand more than I think we really talk about it here on this podcast. And you know there's There's a lot of similarities as far as you know how you can find say seeds from a site and identifying those seeds is really interesting because it can help us. You know. See the sort of you know, spread or expansion of sort of certain species in a similar way that we look at Migration Patterns for you know fauna. It's just again I don't think it exists because it seems very hard. 08:49.10 Cpt Granarius But yes, but like I mean like um and just very specific. A lot of seeds and grains do look very much alike except like this one small characteristic and of course you know much like um, the zoo archeology. Um an arcubotany you have such. 08:59.20 Alex Yep. 09:08.50 Cpt Granarius Ah, range of species that you're going to have to be well versed in and being able to identify you know much in a way like in zoo Archaeology. We don't just you know focus on the one species where basically we cover them all like ah from the largest of mammals to the smallest of mammal birds fish Amphibians If it's there. You have to analyze it so but but you got um and speaking of things that you you've got but you don't want to unless you're again very knowledge on the topic are mollusks because again Mollusks are. 09:28.74 Alex If I want to or not yeah yeah. 09:46.82 Cpt Granarius Vital to period of paleenvironmental reconstruction. Um, as you know like certain molluscs get incredibly particular with regard to the environment they live in which same to be honest, ah you know down to moistness shade levels. You know like some of like have very very niche habitats. So they can be quite useful. Um, except if you get like 1 of the annoying species. They're like boras for up to 2 Meterss and for all you know is super intrusive. So um, yeah, looking right at you chichio chicio this achicula. Yeah. 10:25.80 Alex Yeah I Just um when I find shells and I excavate I throw them in a bag and I hope that someone looks at them one day because it won't be me. 10:34.59 Cpt Granarius Again, like hats after people that do sort of shell just again like such a wild like variety of species many of which looking incredibly similar so you might have like 2 species looking very similar where 1 you know it's very specifically tied to 1 environment. Well the other one just borrows too to oblivion because it can. 10:59.69 Alex Extremely wild to be completely honest and maybe I'm a bit biased So someone who's mostly excavated you know coastlines and islands. Um, you kind of find a lot of mollusks. 11:12.61 Cpt Granarius Did did yes. 11:14.94 Alex The couple in in fact, entire shell meet Middens just entire context of just shells. It's hard I don't. 11:29.30 Cpt Granarius Ah, but I mean like of course you know like ah on coastlands you you get that because you know they're quite. They're easily accessible but you get them inland plenty as well. Yes, um, but we study. 11:40.50 Alex Unfortunately. 11:43.72 Cpt Granarius None of these things. But again we thought we'd do a very quick aside because all of these are very important aspects to pale environmental reconstruction and then and from there you wish I to know is there an archrcubotany podcast out there if there isn't There should be so just saying um. 11:45.67 Alex Nope. 11:59.40 Alex I Mean we could do it. We just don't know anything about it. 12:01.40 Cpt Granarius Yeah. 12:06.36 Cpt Granarius Um, pick it. We might do it. The service to arch. Yourbotany Um, but yes, like. 12:09.15 Alex I mean one could argue we're doing it to service to zoology sometimes. 12:17.90 Cpt Granarius Um, but yes, we don't study any of these sort of very fascinating sort of archeology fields in their own right? So here. We're going to be telling you more about our animal remains can also aid and form like another piece of the puzzle. In paleovironmental reconstruction. 12:32.19 Alex Yeah, and I think that's the important thing is to kind of see it like it's funny because Archeology is like puzzles within Puzzles. You obviously have you know where all of these things are trying to fill in the gaps and kind of fill out the narrative of the past. In the broader Archeological record. But then you can get so specific and that's why I do really like archeology is it's funny because you can work at the big picture level at the same time as you go work an extremely niche ah level as well and I think that's fascinating and. Very interesting and there's just so many ways that you can kind of do it So It's interesting to see zoo archeology as kind of the broader piece of Archaeology. You know what animals live to you or what they do with these animals Blah Blah blah but then putting it into another puzzle. That's more about Well. What's like the broader environment like. In this time in this area. It's fun I Guess sometimes. 13:36.50 Cpt Granarius Um, guess on that note, we might take a little break before we dive into some more zoo archeology now that Aids Pale Environmental Reconstruction 13:48.79 Alex Unless you want us to fill for time.