This paper seeks to theorize the relationship between folklore and zooarchaeology as having shared concepts

of the past and a relationship to corporeal beings (animals and humans). What follows is in part a report on this dyad

of zooarchaeological works and folklore, but also a prospectus describing why this pair should not be separated. For

in subsistence economies. What makes this pairing compelling is that through the utilization of figurative artwork and

faunal analysis, it also becomes possible to incorporate evidence from oral histories, ethnographies, historical sources,

and material culture studies. Neither field can be exclusively relied upon to tell us about the actual past; however,

folklore provides for a broader understanding of the past as perceived, remembered, and made significant for both

historical and present people by offering alternative ideas about the past (Gazin-Schwartz & Holtorg 1999, 5). By

bridging the gap between science, and oral history and traditions, it is possible to develop novel theories for how

zooarchaeology, anthropology, history, and folklore may reveal humanity’s concomitant attitudes and actions towards

Folklore speaks with many voices and accrues over its history, aspects of each phase of its retelling (Bronner

1992, 3-4). Folkloristics, however, is not the only field where a concern with historical accuracy is problematic;

archaeological record. Since figurative art and animal semiology have roots in prehistory and the ancient world, folk

narrative research becomes integral to the fields of anthropology and history because figurative art and animal

semiology have roots in prehistory and the ancient world. Furthermore, folklore continues to affect modern opinion

on contemporary issues and geopolitical doctrine, such as, climate change, deforestation, and nationalism. By

examining the development of anthropocentric interpretations of nonhuman animals it becomes necessary to

The French structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1962) coined the phrase “good to think with” to

draw out the symbolic considerations of animals. This statement raises questions about why we do what we do, and

function (Garber 2008, 3). In other words, they are not, or not only, objects of symbolism, identification, and culinary

Essential to structuralism, this idea advanced the discussion of “How to make opposition, instead of being an obstacle

to integration, serve rather to produce it” (Lévi-Strauss 1963, 89). When comparing tribes, nations, or societies and

the animals that represent them, “it is not the resemblances but the differences which resemble one another,” an

analogue to the relationship between multiple species (Lévi-Strauss 1963, 77). In initiating this example of structuralist

thought — not piecemeal explanation, nor causal nor functionalist explanation, but rather the reconstruction of a

system — Lévi-Strauss’s method of inquiry is essential to serious investigation in animal studies and breaking down

the human-animal binary. Like Max Weber, Anthropologist Clifford Geertz rationalized, “that man is an animal

suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be

Elizabeth J. Reitz and Elizabeth S. Wing define zooarchaeology as the examination of animal remains

it is possible to examine ancient faunal remains and reinterpret the role animals and humans alike played in the past.

Furthermore, with the advances in archaeogenetics (the study of ancient DNA) and the analysis of mitochondrial DNA

(mtDNA), it is becoming possible to look even further into the animal past. According to zooarchaeologist Juliet

Clutton-Brock, “this has become an increasingly important tool in revealing finer details in the identification of

populations of species, the relationship between domestic species and wild progenitors, and the spread of varieties of

domestic species from their location of origin” (2017, 477). Reitz and Wing explain that humans are biologically,

ethologically, and ecologically similar to other animals that they research. The field of zooarchaeology is

multidisciplinary and by virtue of being a branch of anthropology is holistic in its approach —necessary when utilizing

While it may appear as though zooarchaeology serves as yet another scientific tool that scrutinizes

and strongly privileges humans, while the latter erases the boundary and potentially denies animals their own distinct

identities” (2012, 2). These two notions attack the sensibility of the scientific community — “the attribution of any

‘human’ qualities to animals…was seen as unwarranted projection” — but are nonetheless crucial in grasping the

breach in the human-animal boundary by applying the ethical system applied to humans to other species, as well as

Symbolic representations of wildlife emerge in prehistory, and by examining biological and emblematic

interpretations of humans and nonhuman animals in early history, a relationship between them can clearly be found.

Semiotics, the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation, is utilized to prove that nonhuman animals

exist in more than just the natural space that humanity shares with them. French scholar Michel Pastoureau claims that

“the oldest trace of the symbolic ties between man and bear seems to date approximately 80,000 years ago… where a

Neanderthal grave is connected to the grave of a brown bear… thereby indicating the special status of the animal”

anatomically modern humans and prehistoric art took a massive leap forward. For instance, it was during this time

that one of the oldest-known zoomorphic (having or representing animal forms or gods of animal form) sculptures in

the world was created. By carbon dating the layer in which the sculpture was discovered, the Lion-man of the

Hohlenstein-Stadel appears to be between 35,000 and 40,000 years old (Balter 2012, 1086). The figure was carved

out of mammoth ivory using a flint stone knife and is associated with the archaeological Aurignacian culture of the

Other forms of theriomorphic art during this period – having an animal form (especially of a deity) – are

79). The cave network consists of a mile-long series of paintings and drawings featuring more than fifty woolly

mammoths, horses, bison, and rhinoceroses, as well as anthropomorphic figures and various geometric markings.

These examples provide a subtle view into humanity’s collective prehistory, and while these artworks are integral to

the discussion on anthropocentric interpretations of nonhuman animals, animal depictions in sculptures, paintings, and

bone assemblages are not the only places where beasts are found and utilized to fit cultural needs and human objectives

ancient and widely distributed family of cognate myths. The stories usually consist of a large animal being pursued

by hunters which is then transformed into a constellation when the animal is ultimately wounded. The prey animal is

either a bear or an ungulate (a hoofed mammal), and the constellation is typically the four stars of the bowl in the Big

and central Eurasia and for the Americas but is rarely, if at all, known on other continents.” The Cosmic Hunt evinces

the power that oral traditions and myths depicting animals possess in creating links between prehistoric people (e.g.,

Siberia and the Americas), and potentially explains why stories about animals are crucial in shaping identities and

Every society has developed some sort of civilizing process to motivate its members to cooperate and co-

exist in peaceful ways. Tales are motivators, and as they were told and retold over vast periods of time, they were

woven into the texture of the humanizing process, retained in our memories, and assumed different forms (i.e., Cosmic

Hunt, bestiaries, folk tales, and literature) for social purposes that determined the nature of the genre. They play an

intricate role in acculturation, that is, in forming and reflecting the tastes, manners, and ideologies of members in a

particular society. Though many ancient tales might seem to be magical, miraculous, fanciful, superstitious, or unreal,

people believed them in much the same as people today who believe in miracles, religions, cults, and even nations.

the existence of the activity (storytelling) in every part of the inhabited world” (Zipes 2015, 595). The art of storytelling

– represented by cave art, figurines, oral stories, or books – provides insight into a culture and gives a sense of what

is important to a society. Through stories and material cultures concerning nonhuman animals and depiction of beasts

in figurative art, humans can provide insight into the past, guidance for the future, and closure in the ever-decreasing

Humans have made use of beasts in a range of ways – companionship, transportation, diet, and even as

literary tropes. Because of this, animals have been one of the few constants throughout human history. Historian Daniel

Lord Smail states, “if humanity is the proper subject of history, as Linnaeus might well have counseled, then it stands

a catalyzing effect on culture. Semiotics, zoomorphic, and theriomorphic narratives of prehistory and antiquity suggest

that complex political entities are not needed to reconstitute the lessons of the past that carry on in social memory.

Historian Hilda Kean reflects, “Whether past lives become ‘historical’ lives depends not on the subjects themselves—

to permanently keep animals close at hand, and animals have been living near to humans ever since. As prehistory

Richard Bulliet identifies four stages in the history of human-animal relationships: 1) separation – when our human

industrial processes by which meat and animal products are produced. Bulliet mainly focuses on America and explains

that the contemporary state of postdomesticity allows humanity to distance itself, “both physically and

psychologically, from the animals that produce the food, fiber, and hides they depend on…Yet they maintain very

close relationships with companion animals — pets — often relating to them as if they were human” (2007, 3). The

is troublesome. However, the point here is not to debate whether Bulliet is correct or not, but to stress how enticing

these teleological models of Western discourse and urbanization are in terms of understanding human origins and, by

name because having a name symbolically and literally incorporates that animal in the human domestic sphere” (2012,

156). This allows communication with the animal — understood or not — and develops a social contract that builds

a relationship with them. The modern public opinion regarding companion animals must dictate a reconciliation

between humans and nonhumans and suggest that a different kind of connection is forming. However, the discourse

on the origins of animal domestication tends to focus on “the issue of intentionality” — the degree to which

domestication was the product of deliberate human choice (Trut 1999, 16). Whether this choice was deliberate or not,

the domestication of plants and animals marked a major evolutionary transition in human history. Geographer Emma

R. Power suggests that one important way that humans have asserted our authority over nature — including the nature

of nonhuman entities and the human body — is through the process of domestication. Most frequently, domestication

has been studied as a historical, biological, and cultural process that brought in and reshaped the “wildness” of plants

and animals to reflect human culture through selective breeding and integration into human social structures (2012,

Contrary to this idea, the introduction of canines into the history of humanity has raised arguments for the

domesticating humans. In addition, with the dog often regarded as humanity’s first domesticated animal — evidence

for the domestication of the dog reaches as far back as the Paleolithic — was this taming actually “self-domestication,”

decisions made by human beings (Trut 1999, 160)? Regardless of the origins of this companionship, domestic animals

have become intricately woven into human economy, society, and religion. Per archaeologist Melinda Zeder, “animal

domestication is an on-going process, as humans, with increasingly sophisticated technology for breeding and rearing

animals in captivity continue to bring more and more species under their control” (2012, 161). Nevertheless, ideas

such as mutual domestication have led to discourse on collaboration between humans and animals and strongly suggest

Anthropologist Tok Thompson states, “since folklore is a discipline focusing on the very topic of collectively

of exploring the porous nature of human and nonhuman animal relationships, but that it should foreground the

nonhumans with whom we share this planet. Like zooarchaeology, folklore is attempting to incorporate the nonhuman

into the discipline; however, when it comes to the literary aspects of the field (e.g., fairy and folk tales) it is usually

tangential and representational. Folklorists cannot focus exclusively on representations but must pay attention to the

According to historian David Shaw (2013), these issues and questions could not have been addressed until

recently. When humanity considers its past, it looks to its ancestors to remember achievements and reflect on what we

have learned from them. However, this shortsighted statement has its limitations and does not aptly apply to the role

animal’s trace, even when faint, is revelatory” (2012, 171). However, the experiences of those without a voice —

animals and certain humans — have been marked in the material culture of the past; hence, other histories are possible

(Kean 2012, 64). To adopt historian Erica Fudge’s statement on historical animal studies, “The [folklore] of animals

is not merely a ‘fad’ in the ever widening reaching of [folklore] scholarship. Rather, it is a development of existing

By and large, problems that arise in relation to the representation of animals are exacerbated by the conceptual

duality of human-animal and, by extension, culture-nature. Focusing on these issues of opposition gives way to

governing expressions by which we write about animals. This also leads to a predisposition to make animals fit in

with the prevailing concerns and anxieties of a particular period, playing down the ways that they may be read against

the grain of an epoch or culture (Burt 2001, 204-5). For instance, a study of the London Zoo in the nineteenth century

The study of commonalities in archeological assemblages, folk tales, and material culture suggests a strong

anthropological epistemology. However, nonhuman animals within these narratives actually engage in a more complex

phenomenon of symbolism. Diachronic evidence of animals’ utilitarian value, educational purposes, or monetary

prevalence turns into an examination of those processes, and it is not sufficient to stipulate that nonhuman animals

lack a role in creating society and culture. The premise that nonhuman animals are not central actors in shaping history

or crucial in establishing mores and ethics of civilization follows the presumption that animals are “dumb beasts” with