在紐西蘭,考古分類學是在1960年代由劍橋的E. Higgs和奧克蘭大學的Wilfred Shawcross,還有幾年後奧塔哥大學的Charles Higham所帶進來的。雖然這裡已經有不少的考古研究動物骨頭,這些學者則更想從考古去了解經濟發展。這表示之前的發掘必須重新賦予它們新的意義。
In New Zealand, the origins of Archaeozoology are traceable to the rise of economic prehistory, brought to New Zealand in the 1960s by students of E. Higgs at Cambridge, such as Wilfred Shawcross to the University of Auckland, and a few years later by Charles Higham to Otago University. Although there had been numerous studies of animal bones in New Zealand archaeology before this, these two scholars had an outspoken attitude towards the study of archaeology which placed subsistence economics high up on the scale of importance. This meant that comparative collections needed to be established at the two Universities at the opposite ends of the country, so that shell, bird, and fish remains, recovered during archaeological excavations could be properly identified and studied. |