Our relationship with animals has a long and complex history, one that is as important today as in the past. However, while most of us interact with domesticated animals (and their by-products) daily, we rarely give this complex relationship (or its history) a second thought. We put milk or yoghurt on our breakfast cereal, eat cheese (and perhaps ham) sandwiches as snacks and consider roast chicken as a treat for Sunday lunch. Most of us wear shoes or other clothes made from animal products and sleep under down duvets. We take our dogs for walks, stroke (or chase away from our gardens) the neighbour’s cat (whilst likely getting bitten by its fleas!), and – if we’re very lucky – ride horses for pleasure. Our interactions with animals are not, however, always positive. Whilst we might encourage songbirds to our gardens by feeding them, we’re less keen on sharing our living spaces with those animals considered pests, who can spread disease and (if given the opportunity) spoil our stored foods.

In its broadest definition, geoarchaeology is the study of the archaeological record using any geoscience-based technique, method, concept, or knowledge (Rapp and Hill 2006). However, since archaeometry is a well-defined field focusing on the application of physical sciences to archeological prospecting, dating, and provenance (Waters 1992), it could be proposed that geoarchaeology has a more narrow definition, actually closer to the original coining of the term (Renfrew 1976) and to its modern main application. In this approach, geoarchaeology is the discipline that studies site stratigraphy and site formation processes, and the interaction of human and nature in shaping the landscape (Butzer 1982; French 2003; Goldberg and Macphail 2006; Waters 1992;). The history of this approach goes back several hundred years, as can be seen in the 1863 monograph of Sir Charles Lyell: Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man. However, it was not until 1976 that Colin Renfrew introduced and defined the term “geoarchaeology” in the preface of an edited volume by Davidson and Shackley (1976). Indeed, Renfrew (1976) defined precisely what should be the main concern of geoarchaeology, concisely summed up by Goldberg and Macphail (2006: 3): “geoarchaeology provides the ultimate context of all aspects of archaeology from understanding the position of a site in a landscape setting to a comprehension of the context of individual finds and features.”

Invertebrates (“animals without backbones”) constitute around 95 per cent of all existing fauna, and are therefore the majority of all living animals today. The remaining 5 percent of all animals are those from the sub-phylum Vertebrata that include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals (Barnes et al. 2001). Despite being present in most archaeological sites, invertebrates are often not adequately recovered or studied, partly due to the prevailing view among archaeologists that they are marginal for the understanding of past human behavior (Kenward 2009). Invertebrates (and their products) have been exploited throughout human history, not only as sources of food, but also for utilitarian purposes as tools, decorative objects, fibres, dyes, waxes, mastics, sealants, medicines, and poisons (Thomas and Mannino 2001). Detailed discussion of these uses by humans is not the scope of this chapter, which aims to highlight why the remains of these invertebrates hold great potential for archaeological science, as well as for reconstructing past environments beyond the scope of archaeology alone.

As the study of the past through its material remains, archaeology has a long tradition of drawing on the sciences, especially the natural sciences. The multifaceted approach required in the study of human societies, and the focus on the material – artefacts and ‘ecofacts’, manufactured and natural – means that, perhaps more than any other academic subject, archaeology relies heavily on a diverse range of fields outside of the discipline (Pollard and Heron 2008). The plethora of scientific techniques used in modern archaeological science reflects the varied aspects of life in the past they are utilised to investigate (Brothwell and Pollard 2001: xviii). The demands of inferring of activities, motivations, behaviours, ideas and beliefs of individuals in the past requires multistranded, complementary approaches. As a consequence, archaeological science enters into many areas of the study of the past and is a fundamental component of the investigation of past societies and human behaviours.

All the inheritable material possessed by an organism, the genome, is stored as DNA, the study of which has made an enormous impact upon archaeological science. The proteome is the suite of proteins produced by the genome at any one time. The field of proteomics is the study of this proteome, and uses mass spectrometry to identify proteins by their amino acid sequence.

Lithic analysis is primarily about understanding the factors that lead to variability in stone tool assemblages. These include properties of the raw materials used to make stone tools and the ways the sources for these raw materials were managed; the techniques and strategies used to reduce these materials into useable tools; the functional needs these tools were designed to meet; and stylistic preferences. Underlying these factors is fracture mechanics, the basic physical laws, which make stone knapping possible. Through the study of these various factors and how they each contribute to formation of a lithic assemblage, archaeologists hope to say something about prehistoric behavior.

Isotope studies in archaeology are often concerned with the analysis of preserved proteins for the reconstruction of past diets, but isotopic signatures in the mineral phase of archaeological skeletons can also be used to reconstruct place of residence and even the contemporary local climate. These applications are based upon the premise of a relationship between underlying local geology/local soils (strontium) and ingested water (oxygen) to the body isotope chemistry of the individuals in question (see reviews in Bentley 2006, and Pederzani and Britton 2019). Where the distribution of isotope signatures within and across different ecosystems varies predictably, these methods can be used to source human and animal remains to specific regions or to identify non-local outliers or migrants (e.g., Bentley 2013; Müldner et al. 2009).

Residue analysis, as used in archaeology, is a generic term used to describe the characterisation of traces of organic products from the past. This chapter is concerned with organic residues that are commonly encountered bound to, adhered to or absorbed within a mineral artefact, such as a ceramic vessel or a stone tool. Methods of analysis are varied and range from microscopic identification of remnant tissue fragments to chemical and structural analysis of the major classes of biomolecules, such as lipids, proteins and DNA. This chapter aims to provide the reader with a broad overview of the composition of residues associated with artefacts, their formation and preservation, the principal methods of analysis and to demonstrate the impact that this field has made for understanding the use of artefacts in the past. For more detailed overviews of the occurrence and analysis of specific biomolecules in archaeology, readers are directed to Evershed et al. (2001), Evershed (2008a) and Pollard and Heron (2008) for lipids; Hendy et al. (2001), Pollard and Heron (2008), Colombini and Modugno (2009) and Regert (2011) also provide a comprehensive description of lipid residue analysis of artefacts.

The osteological study of human remains from archaeological contexts can provide a wealth of information on past peoples, principally because it involves examining the primary data: the people themselves. Human osteologists use the physical remains of the human body to reconstruct behaviour, demography, growth and development, and health at both the individual and the population level, working from a biocultural perspective (Goodman and Leatherman 1998).

The ability to objectively compare shapes of skeletal remains, such as skulls and teeth, or artefacts, such as stone tools, is central to many questions in archeology and palaeoanthropology. Over the last decade, geometric morphometric (GMM) techniques have revolutionised the statistical analysis of shape and form. Statistical shape-analysis can be a helpful tool for answering many archeological questions. One might, for example, be interested in the population dynamics associated with changes in material culture. Studying the human skeletal remains from different archeological stratas using geometric morphometrics can provide insights into the population history. Based on artefacts alone it is often impossible to determine whether a cultural change was linked to the replacement of a local population, or whether this new set of behaviors and skills developed locally.

Human produced glass was first regularly produced in Egypt and the Near East in the sixteenth century BC. It is often brightly coloured and was of high value, rating as a precious stone. As such, its study has the potential to not only give valuable information about technological ability and transfer, but also to map out exchange networks, especially if the sites where the glass was made can be identified and characterised. Therefore, glass is an important part of the archaeological assemblage, and an increasing amount of work has been devoted to it, especially over the last twenty or so years (Rehren and Freestone 2015).