The Animal Turn, Archaeozoology, aDNA: Revealing past entanglements

Born out of the Modernist Project, archaeology has been deeply rooted in anthropocentric ontologies ever since its beginnings. It was about humans in the past, as understood by humans in the present. And yet, through archaeological research, multiple other-than-human pasts emerge. They tell stories of coexistence, predation, extinction, commensalism, partnership, companionship, mutual becomings – i.e. the shifting webs of relations with a myriad of different creatures humans entangled themselves in. As articulated by Donna Haraway, rather than a single species, it is the assemblages of organic beings and abiotic actors which make history. In the age which came to be known as the Anthropocene, many of these webs have been impaired or broken. With the devastating rate of human-induced mass extinctions, it is estimated that the majority of species and associated ecological assemblages will be lost by the end of the 21^st century. In their recent book Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, Tsing et al. have referred to the vestiges of past lifeways and lifeforms as ̔ghosts’ or ̔haunted landscapes’. Ultimately, the material traces of a number of non-human animals which once roamed the Earth are and will be preserved in the archaeological record only. As a discipline dedicated to the study of animal remains from archaeological sites, archaeozology provides unique opportunities to explore past entanglements of humans and non-humans, some of which have been long gone. Ancient DNA analysis offers further insights into their presence and dispersal. In this paper, I discuss a particular case study from the Mesolithic Danube Gorges, related to the discovery of Rutilus frisii, a fish species previously unknown in the region. Archaeozoological and aDNA analysis have have shown that it was once ubiquitous in the Danube at least up to the Middle Holocene. Moreover, with its perpetual, seasonal return, and specific pearl-like tubercles occurring in breeding males in spring, this species ocuppied an important place in the ontology of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher communities. The ornamental practice involving R. frisii pharyngeal teeth worn as garment appliqués suggests that human bodies could have been perceived as fluid, becoming parts of new assemblages by incorporating non-human elements. Ultimately, archaeozoological and aDNA analyses are not only vital to the reconstruction of former biodiversity, but, along with recent paradigmatic shifts to decenter the human, offer unique possibilities of thinking about multispecies pasts and histories of entanglement.