Michelle J. LeFebvre

University of Florida | UF · Florida Museum

The Florida Keys are currently experiencing unprecedented loss of lifeways, biodiversity, and cultural heritage due to sea-level rise, catastrophic storm events, unsustainable traditions of resource exploitation, and land development. Yet, these islands have a long history of human occupation and socioecological systems underlying their current sus...

For many years, archaeologists have relied on Munsell Soil Color Charts (MSCC) as tools for standardizing the recording of soil and sediment colors in the field and artifacts such as pottery in the lab. Users have identified multiple potential sources of discrepancy in results, such as differences in inter-operator perception, light source, or mois...

Burned and fractured corals are common in Bahamian archaeological deposits. Although corals were used as tools and ornaments, no one has addressed why they might have been burned. We consider the possibility that the indigenous Bahamians practiced “stone boiling” as a method of food preparation. In this regard, coral cobbles provide an excellent me...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Guinea pigs (Cavia spp.) have a long association with humans. From as early as 10,000 years ago they were a wild food source. Later, domesticated Cavia porcellus were dispersed well beyond their native range through pre-Columbian exchange networks and, more recently, widely across the globe. Here we present 46 complete mitogenomes of archaeological...

Quaternary paleontological and archaeological evidence often is crucial for uncovering the historical mechanisms shaping modern diversity and distributions. We take an interdisciplinary approach using multiple lines of evidence to understand how past human activity has shaped long-term animal diversity in an island system. Islands afford unique opp...

No native species of tortoises ( Chelonoidis spp.) live today in the Bahamian (Lucayan) Archipelago (= The Bahamas + The Turks and Caicos Islands), although a number of species inhabited these islands at the first human contact in the late-Holocene. Until their extinction, tortoises were the largest terrestrial herbivores in the island group. We re...

Advancements in molecular science are continually improving our knowledge of marine turtle biology and evolution. However, there are still considerable gaps in our understanding, such as past marine turtle distributions, which can benefit from advanced zooarchaeological analyses. Here, we apply collagen fingerprinting to 130 archaeological marine t...

Advancements in molecular science are continually improving our knowledge of marine turtle biology and evolution. However, there are still considerable gaps in our understanding, such as past marine turtle distributions, which can benefit from advanced zooarchaeological analyses. Here, we apply collagen fingerprinting to 130 archaeological marine t...

Bahamian hutias (Geocapromys ingrahami) are the only endemic terrestrial mammal in The Bahamas and are currently classified as a vulnerable species. Drawing on zooarchaeological and new geochemical datasets, this study investigates human management of Bahamian hutias as cultural practice at indigenous Lucayan settlements in The Bahamas and the Turk...

Interdisciplinary collaborations and data sharing are essential to addressing the long history of human-environmental interactions underlying the modern biodiversity crisis. Such collaborations are increasingly facilitated by, and dependent upon, sharing open access data from a variety of disciplinary communities and data sources, including those w...

The full spreadsheet from the Parnell site, an archaeological site in Florida. This shows the cleaned dataset before the Darwin Core cross-walking is complete. Note the 'Verbatim' and 'Clean' Taxon and Element fields, which shows how these fields are edited slightly in order to accommodate the UBERON mappings for element and the VertNet propagation...

Bahamian hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami) are endemic to The Bahamas. The skeletal remains of this species have been recovered from multiple Lucayan-associated archaeological sites in the region, suggesting that it was an important source of human food. This study explores the role of pre-Columbian indigenous peoples in the geographic distribution of...

Zooarchaeological specimens are the remains of animals, including vertebrate and invertebrate taxa, recovered from, or in association with, archaeological contexts of deposition or surrounding landscapes. The physical scope of zooarchaeological specimens is diverse and includes macro- and micro-zooarchaeological specimens composed of archaeological...

The temporality of specimens is an often overlooked but quintessential part of using aggregated biodiversity occurrences for research, especially when millions of these occurrences exist in deep time. Presently in Darwin Core, there are terms for describing the geological context of specimens, which is needed for paleontological specimens. However,...

The domestic guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) was translocated from South America to several Caribbean islands sometime after 500 CE. Identifying the timing and routes of guinea pig translocation can provide a proxy for human interaction in the region. A recent investigation of aDNA of Caribbean guinea pig remains, based on sequences from short regions...

Zooarchaeology is a field heavily integrated with many other disciplines, including zoology, biology, ecology, geology, history, and anthropology. The basis of the discipline lies in the zooarchaeologist’s ability to identify faunal remains based on analogy with known specimens, either from a comparative faunal collection or from experience. Yet, t...

Careful consideration of the ways in which methods influence results has been a vital aspect of zooarchaeology’s development as a branch of archaeology. In this chapter we highlight several prominent methodological issues in archaeofaunal analysis and consider the ongoing nature and future prospects of methodological problems in general. The role o...

Zooarchaeology in Practice advances the methodological discussion beyond its present strictures by addressing the development of analytically sound practices through a collection of seminal essays authored by leading figures in the field. Offering a level of depth and breadth not readily found in the available literature, this volume examines how z...

As part of efforts to mobilize zooarchaeological collections data, there is a strong need for new terms that can extend the Darwin Core standard in order to describe material condition, preparation history, and chronology. These data are important for understanding the full context of specimens from an array of natural and cultural heritage discipl...

In archaeology, human-introduced animals provide clues about social interaction and movement of past peoples. Zooarchaeological records in the Caribbean show that pre-Columbian people introduced several South American mammals to different islands. This article examines all reported pre-Columbian zooarchaeological records of domesticated guinea pigs...

Aim This paper investigates the prehistoric introduction of five mammalian taxa to Carriacou (Lesser Antilles) and refines the known anthropogenic ranges for these fauna in the pre-Columbian West Indies. The importance of such records for understanding the region’s historical biogeography and ecology is considered. Location Carriacou Island, Grenad...

Excavations at the Tibes ceremonial site over several field seasons produced an abundance of vertebrate and invertebrate faunal remains. We use data from the zooarchaeological analysis of these remains to address various aspects of subsistence practices at the site, including the human role in animal selection and transport to the site, change thro...

In recent years much ink has been spilled debating the role, nature, and legitimacy of island archaeology as a subdiscipline within archaeology. No matter how islands and their archaeology are viewed, however, there can be no doubt that zooarchaeological studies of islands have gained increasing prominence in our efforts to understand human lifeway...

The first systematic archaeological investigation of Precolumbian sites on the island of Carriacou in the West Indies provides a rich source of information regarding Amerindian settlement in the southern Caribbean. Herein, we report results from an island-wide survey and subsequent excavation at two large village sites—Grand Bay and Sabazan—that pr...

Caribbean archaeologists have tended to focus exclusively on the prehistory of the largest islands, perhaps because large islands are believed to provide the landmass necessary to support long-term population growth and cultural development. Yet, as research here and elsewhere, e.g., the Pacific, is showing, small islands provided access to resourc...

This paper discusses zooarchaeological analysis of vertebrate faunal specimens from Grand Bay, a Ceramic Age (ca.ad 400–1300) site on the island of Carriacou in the Grenadines, West Indies. Using faunal data to assess subsistence patterns of vertebrate exploitation during late site occupation, we can begin to better understand Grand Bay procurement...

Archaeozoologists working in island settings are united by special challenges and issues. However, they generally conduct research within geographic foci (e.g., the Caribbean, Oceania, etc.) whose boundaries can hinder collaboration between practitioners and limit unified approaches toward addressing larger questions in island archaeology such as t...