Director: Thomas Wake
E-mail: zooarch@ucla.edu
Phone: 310.206.1782
Room: A 357 Fowler

Dr. Elsie Sandefur, Lab Founder

The UCLA Institute of Archaeology Zooarchaeology Laboroatory was established in 1989 in order to facilitate the identification and analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites. The lab is located in Room A-357, in the "A" level of the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the north end of campus. With over 650 square feet of space, the lab provides ample work space for students and researchers, as well as a number of computers for data entry and analysis. An intensive laboratory based zooarchaeology course is taught every other spring by the lab's director, Dr. Thomas Wake. Dr. Wake is available to consult with students, set up volunteer or independent study projects, and develop research designs, sampling protocols, and evaluate results of interested investigators.

One of the most important aspects of any zooarchaeological laboratory is the modern comparative collection available for use in identification of archaeological faunal remains. The UCLA Zooarchaeology Laboratory maintains an expanding collection of over 1200 vertebrate specimens including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Native Californian species predominate, but domestic, Central American, and Peruvian taxa are well represented. A collection of over 10,000 mollusk specimens is currently being cataloged and available for use as well. The UCLA Department of Biology maintains a large collection of fish skeletons and a large bird and mammal skeletal collection is included in the Dickey Natural History Collection.

To date the lab has conducted over 200 separate projects from six continents. Archaeological animal remains have been collected, identified, and analyzed from the following countries: Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Central African Republic, Denmark, Jordan, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, Syria, Turkey, and the United States. Within the U.S. most of the collections examined are from California, but include Alaska, Arizona, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Washington. A list of recent publications and reports is available.

Lab directors (left to right): Elsie Sandefur, Susan Colby, Jean Hudson, Tom Wake

The lab is currently conducting analysis on a number of sites in California including several from coastal sites from Camp Pendleton, several desert sites from the Coachella Valley just north of the Salton Sea, and Southeast Farallon Island, 26 miles west of San Francisco. Dr. Wake is currently analyzing verterbate faunal remains from the Pacific coastal Chiapas, Mexico site of Paso de la Amada with Dr. Richard Lesure. In January of 1998 the lab's director, Dr. Wake, received a grant from the National Science Foundation (SBR-9730918) to analyze vertebrate faunal remains recovered by Dr. Michael Love from the Pacific coastal site of Ujuxte, Guatemala. In July of 1998 Dr. Wake and Dr. Jeanne Arnold received support from the National Science Foundation (SBR-9806272) to aggressively expand the fish portion of the modern comparative collection.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]