Archaeomalacology : shells in the archaeological record / edited by Katherine Szabó, Catherine Dupont, Vesna Dimitrijević, Luis Gomez Gastelum, Nathalie Serrand.

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction -- 1. The use of marine mollusc shells at the Neolithic site Shkarat Msaied, Jordan / Aiysha Abu-Laban -- 2. Evaluating the role of molluscan shells assemblage recovered from Padri, a coastal Harappan settlement in Gujarat, India / Arati Deshpande-Mukherjee and Vasant Shinde -- 3. The provenance and use of fossil scaphopod shells at the Late Neolithic/Eneolithic site Vinča – Belo Brdo, Serbia / Vesna Dimitrijević -- 4. Perforated shells from an Early Mesolithic cemetery at La Vergne (Charente-Maritime, France): from acquisition to use and (sometimes) to wear / Catherine Dupont, Luc Laporte, Patrice Courtaud, Henri Duday and Yves Gruet -- 5. Shell use in West Mexico and the Southwestern United States. An archaeological comparison / Luis Gómez Gastélum -- 6. Occurences of exogenous freshwater mussel shells (Bivalvia: Unionida) during the precolumbian ceramic age of the lesser Antilles / Nathalie Serrand and Kevin S. Cummings -- 7. Dead from the sea : worn shells in Aegean prehistory / Tatiana Theodoropoulou -- 8. Temporal changes in shell bead technologies based on Levantine examples / Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer -- 9. Shell tools in an early Neolithic coastal site in the Cantabrian region (Northern Spain): an experimental program for use-wear analysis at Santimamiñe cave / David Cuenca-Solana, Igor Gutiérrez-Zugasti and Ignacio Clemente -- Shell middens and shells as a food resource -- 10. Shell Middens and the use of molluscs in the Late Middle Holocene in the Rio de la Plata: an ethnoarchaeological contribution / Laura Beovide -- 11. Marine Resource Exploitation at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis (Red Sea, Egypt). The Harbour of the Pharaohs to the Land of Punt / Alfredo Carannante, Rodolfo Fattovich and Carla Pepe -- 12. Shellfish gathering during the Iron Age and Roman times in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula / Carlos Fernández-Rodríguez, Víctor Bejega-García and Eduardo González-Gómez-de-Agüero -- 13. Shellfishing and Horticulture in Prehistoric Northern New Zealand / Tiffany James-Lee -- 14. Fisher-Gatherers of the Red Sea: Results of the Farasan Archipelago Shell Sites Project / Matt Gregory Meredith Williams -- 15. Shell exploitation at Playa del Tesoro and Banderas Mexican Pacific coast / José Beltrán -- 16. Oysters, Pheasants and Fine Foods. “High Class” Products in Alife (Campania, Italy) during and after the Roman Empire / Alfredo Carannante, Salvatore Chilardi, Daniela Rebbecchi, Annalisa Del Santo, Roberto Vedovelli -- 17. Archaeozoological analysis of molluscan fauna from the Late Bronze Age stratum of site 4 of Tell Jenin (Northern West Bank, Palestine) / Ademar Ezzughayyar, Khalid M. Swaileh -- 18. Acquisition and management of marine invertebrates resources on a pre-Roman coastal settlement : the site of Dossen Rouz (Locquémeau-Trédrez, Brittany, France) / Caroline Mougne, Catherine Dupont, Anna Baudry, Laurent Quesnel and Marie-Yvane Daire -- Shells as indicators of palaeoenvironment, site formation and transformation -- 19. Dynamics of palaeoenvironmental conditions over the last millennia by archaeomalacological data (on example of ADK-009 shell midden, Adak Island, Aleutian Islands) / Zhanna Antipushina -- 20. Biostratigraphy of shells and climate changes in the Cantabrian region (Northern Spain) during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition / Igor Gutiérrez-Zugasti and David Cuenca-Solana -- 21. Deposits of terrestrial snails: Natural or Anthropogenic processes? / Eloísa Bernáldez-Sánchez and Esteban García-Viñas -- 22. Micro-Freshwater Gastropod Remains from Çatalhöyük, Turkey : Preliminary Environmental Observations / Burçin Aşkım Gümüs and, Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer -- 23. Mollusc Shells from Archaeological Building Materials / Matt Law.

This publication is the volume is the proceedings of the ICAZ Archaeomalacology Working Group which took place at the 11th International Conference of the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ), held in Paris, France 23rd-28th August 2010. Twenty-three papers are published with evidences of human collection and modification of shells from all over the world and over a large scale of chronology (from Prehistory to Antiquity). The papers are organized in three sub-sessions. The section "Acquisition and use of shell raw materials in prehistory" focuses on patterns of acquisition and use of shell raw materials as well as on the production sequences of shell items in time and space. Specific themes of interest include the exploitation of shells as raw materials in relation to their dietary functions, or choices made to use particular shells along with or as opposed to other raw materials. The section "Shell middens and shells as a food resource" provides a venue to explore the relationships between human groups and molluscan resources and especially encourages the combination of information derived from multiple disciplines, as well as studies that seek to contextualise shell-gathering in a wider socio-economic context. The section "Shells as indicators of palaeoenvironment, site formation and transformation" aims to investigate the potential of the archaeological shell to answer questions not directly related to subsistence or material culture and especially welcomes contributions which mobilise the study of the archaeological shell in relation to modern resource management and environmental change.