The term bioarchaeology was first coined by British archaeologist Grahame Clark in 1972 as a reference to zooarchaeology, or the study of animal bones from archaeological sites.

Archaeobotany Collections

Like the faunal and soils collections housed in the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory, both archaeological collections and modern reference collections of plants are curated. These collections are an integral part of scientific studies and as such their collection, maintenance, and orderly use are crucial. The plant collections are still in their incipient stages of growth as this component of the environmental archaeology program is a recent addition.

Preservation Macrofossils of Plant is preserved through four main modes of preservation sites of archaeological.In First, the plant remains, and the cereal grains, chaff, seeds and the charcoal is largely reduced into the elemental carbon (charred) and they are heated in a reduce atmosphere. These are called as 'charred' or 'carbonised' and the plant remains. Archaeobotany preservation is based on towards the plant remains and that came into contact with the fire and with the help of cooking or fuel use, and those with less fragile, such as cereal grains and the nutshell. Next , plant remains and it is deposited permanently in waterlogged anoxic conditions and it was preserved in the absence of oxygen which prohibits with microbial activity. The plant has wide range and it remains is usually preserve and it has include seeds, fruit stones, nutshells, leaves, and other material of vegetative. Third, mineralisztion of calcium phosphate of that plant remains occurs usually in latrine pits and in the middens, and the plant became remain and mostly added calcium-phosphate. Finally,the plant remain and it was preserved by desiccation in arid environments, in the absence of water limits decomposition ArchaeobotanyIdentificatons Identification A stereomicroscope, is used to identify of macro remains and it has the morphological features as shape and features of surface in the study of seeds, or microanatomy in the study of wood or charcoal. Identification literature is the comparative high collection of the modern of plant materials is very crucial for correct results. With the type of material it depends, and its condition, and also with other methods such as thin sections or SEM were applied.

Zooarchaeology, also known as Archaeozoology, is the study of animal remains from archaeological sites. The remains consist primarily of the hard parts of the body such as bones, teeth, and shells. Such remains may represent the food refuse of ancient populations as well as animals used for transportation, farm or other labor or pet, or for decoration, clothing and tools and the scrap therefrom. The study of faunal remains is the zooarcheaology or archaozoology. when the Faunal remains and the items were left behind when their animal died. It will include the bones, shells, hair, chitin, scales, hides, proteins and the DNA Most of the time, most faunals do not survive. They were decomposed or boken into various circumstances. This will create more difficulties in identifying the faunals remains and interpreting their significance

Zooarchaeology Collections

The Environmental Archaeology Program maintains two types of zooarchaeological research collections. One, the reference or comparative collection, contains skeletons or shells of modern animal species used to identify zooarchaeological materials. The zooarchaeology collection houses samples of animal remains excavated from archaeological sites.

Holdings consist of anthropogenic (human-influenced) soils and control samples taken from the sites and surrounding off-site areas. Bulk samples of about 350 grams are taken from each natural soil horizon and cultural stratum within excavation units. Augered samples are taken from below the floors of excavation units and from the vicinity of the site. Each sample is air-dried, assigned a catalogue number, and curated in the Museum prior to analysis. Voucher samples are retained for future use.