In his Preface, Umberto Albarella gives an account of how and why he came to arrange the Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology as he did. He intended it to be a ‘showcase of “world zooarchaeology”, illustrating the many facets of the discipline and its huge potential for our understanding of the human past’ (p. vii). Of the possible ways he saw to arrange this showcase––methods, themes, and geography––he chose the geographical approach because themes and methods would emerge in their application in case studies worldwide. Another reason for this approach was that the book explicitly is not intended to replicate existing zooarchaeological textbooks. This explanation of the aim, origins, and spirit of the volume is a good starting point for an 840-page, not-so-handy handbook.

The book is divided into sections representing six parts of the world, plus an introduction (Part I, with one chapter by the editor). The journey around the world starts in Europe (Part II, fourteen chapters), and heads off to Asia (Part III, eight chapters) and Africa (Part IV, eight chapters), then to North America (Part V, eight chapters) and South America (Part VI, eight chapters), and finally to Oceania (Part VII, four chapters). In addition, a glossary of zooarchaeological methods is given. Within each of the geographical Parts II–VII, the contributions are arranged roughly chronologically. The role of animals is traced through case-studies in different ecological and cultural settings from the first foragers to the dawn of the modern age. Some of the contributions cover vast regions (e.g. Chs 2, 19, 34, 44, 47) and others enormous time-spans (e.g. Chs 7, 17, 21, 30, 34, 43). The long-term overviews of regions such as the Carpathian Basin (Bartosiewicz, Ch. 7), western Turkey (Çakırlar & Atici, Ch. 17), and Patagonia (Borrero, Ch. 43), are the most handbook-like chapters, though they accordingly do not provide such vivid narratives as some of the more focused case studies.

With his introduction, Albarella manages to give an idea of how the field of zooarchaeology took shape without resorting to an account of research history milestones. Instead, he provides useful and deliberate definitions, and contextualizes the development of zooarchaeology within archaeology and archaeological theory, the different research strands to which it contributes, and its situation between the sciences and the humanities. The internationalization of the field is illustrated by tracing the growing conferences of the International Council of Zooarchaeology (ICAZ). For a proper internationalization of research, however, further efforts are necessary: the affiliations of the contributors to this book show a marked predominance of European and North American institutions, as the editor himself states (p. 13). The spirit of this introduction is compelling—it is a manifesto for solidarity, communication, open access to resources (including the reference collections so indispensable for this field), and inclusion of colleagues from countries where zooarchaeology is not yet fully established—all aspects in which this community is indeed strong. Albarella portrays zooarchaeology as a diverse and creative field, with scholars who constantly adapt their methods to the specifics of their materials and research questions. This perception is affirmed by the whole book.

The case studies not only cover huge parts of the world but also a vast temporal, thematic, and methodological array, which is presented in very individual chapters that deliberately do not follow a predetermined scheme. The scope of this project requires aids to orientation, and the book offers some features: each chapter includes at least one map of the study area, thus enhancing spatial orientation, while methodological guidance is provided by a glossary of zooarchaeological methods, whose forty-four entries reference relevant chapters. The references selected for the glossary regrettably do not reflect the worldwide scope, at least not linguistically: of 160 entries, 154 are in English, five in French, and one in German; other languages are not represented. All chapters contain information on their respective time frames, but it would have been helpful to include in each a table referring to the chronological phases of the region in question, as some authors did (Chs 8, 11, 12, 23, 33). In order to enhance understanding across disciplinary, linguistic, and biogeographical boundaries, most articles use both common and scientific names, which should be common practice. An index is an indispensable tool for a handbook; the forty-four-page index included here however—referring to places, sites, people, topics, methods, taxa, and more—is not exhaustive. The entry ‘archaeobotany’, for instance, only refers to three chapters, whereas at least eight use archaeobotanical results, some intensively. For people seeking classic ‘handbook content’, i.e. quick access to zooarchaeological basics, the glossary and the index will nevertheless prove valuable.

In the following, I want to highlight how two positive aspects emerge from the ‘showcase of world zooarchaeology’ approach: the diversity of human-animal histories and the interdisciplinary integration of zooarchaeology.

The first geographically focused chapter, on Upper Palaeolithic dog domestication as an aid to mammoth hunting (Ch. 2, Germonpré & Sablin), already encompasses the two main spheres of human-animal interaction primarily dealt with in this book. A few contributions (Chs 2, 5–7, 16–23, 25, 42) discuss the emergence of domestic species in different parts of the world and try to disentangle, with a wide range of interdisciplinary methods, whether the animals were imported or domesticated locally. The most informative of these approaches take into account the mind-set of the time and pay special attention to the reasons for domestication and its cultural impact. These are up-to-date examples of how to approach an old topic in a fresh way, also integrating current epistemological streams, notably aspects of social zooarchaeology (Russell, Reference Russell2012: 207‒58). For example, the potential role of ritual and feasting is discussed for Neolithic Anatolia (Ch. 16, Peters, Pöllath & Arbuckle), whereas Chinese pig domestication may have been linked to socio-economic competition, eventually leading to the formation of complex societies (Ch. 19, Liu & Ma). Hongo (Ch. 21) depicts the lasting impact of Buddhism on animal husbandry practices in Japan from its beginnings up until the twentieth century. These more cultural-historical perspectives are complemented by articles that emphasize ecological impacts, exemplarily highlighting the old divide between proponents of external and internal factors of cultural change: Chapter 25 (Gifford-Gonzalez) on pastoralism in Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, describes the creation of domestic livestock and the subsequent interdependent co-evolution primarily as human adaptations to environmental change. The variable sequence and dates of domestications in different parts of the world reveal how many cultural and environmental factors were interwoven in these processes and what a variety of alternative lifestyles developed through these. While arable farming in Eurasia and Africa is strongly linked to draught animals, some chapters on North and South America (Chs 33, 39, 40) show how agricultural economies were able to form without animal labour. However, for South America the impact and spread of autochthonous camelid domestications dating back c. 5,000 years (Benecke, Reference Benecke1994: 332‒38) remain very unclear, despite Chapter 42 (Mengoni Goñalons), which discusses them in the context of the thirteenth- to sixteenth-century ad Inca Empire. Given its manifold landscapes and the specifics of its neotropical fauna, a few more chapters on South America would have provided a clearer notion of human-animal interactions specific to this continent.

Among the most impressive chapters are those that show how intercontinental colonisations let different lifestyles and value systems clash, and how the colonising forces tried to transfer their accustomed subsistence modes to the new territories. Reitz (Ch. 38) describes the autochthonous-colonial mix of foraging and breeding animal usage in different early colonies in the Southeast of the United States, and Heinrich (Ch. 31) tracks the origins of Apartheid back to the Dutch East India Company's efforts in the seventeenth century to install a ship provisioning system at the Cape of Good Hope—among others by means of indigenous dispossession. Heinrich impressively traces how the indigenous Khoekhoen lost their social cohesion with the cattle they were deprived of, their primary indicator of status. This is a stirring example of how bone counts and survivorship charts can form the basis of a narrative that, aided by complementary evidence, shows how strongly animals are woven into the fabric of societies. It is interesting to discover parallels with the acculturation processes that Romanization brought for Italy (Ch. 9, de Grossi Mazzorin & Minniti) and that were triggered by Classical through to Islamic cultures in North Africa (Ch. 30, MacKinnon). The book is filled with examples of how people incorporated animals deep into their belief and value systems: the role of cattle for the Kerma in Sudan (Ch. 26, Chaix) and Iron Age farmers in southern Africa (Ch. 27, Badenhorst); animal mummies in Egypt (Ch. 29, Ikram); communal bison hunting in North America (Ch. 34, Speth); Maya sacrificial ceremonies (Ch. 39, Emery); and the Brazilian shell-mounds which were not simply food waste dumps (Ch. 41, Klokler). As this incomplete list suggests, the compilation manages to provide balanced coverage of human relationships with wild as well as domestic species, showing how the former, many of them aquatic, shaped non-stock-breeding lifestyles.

Many of the chapters show how people made the best of the wild resources at their disposal, with the scale of the book allowing unusually wide environmental diversity. These studies show how animals’ behaviour, their biogeography, and their availability or market value shaped peoples’ lives. The chapters on Pleistocene Melanesia and Tasmania (Ch. 44, Leavesley, and Ch. 45, Cosgrove & Garvey), on Upper Palaeolithic hunting in Eurasia (Ch. 2, Germonpré & Sablin, and Ch. 3, Boyle), and on communal bison hunting (Ch. 34, Speth) focus on the influence of animal behaviour on hunting strategies and mobility. The biogeography of animals in relation to settlement patterns is highlighted by, for example, contributions on Mesolithic fishers on the changing shores of the Baltic Sea (Ch. 4, Lõugas), the pitiable settlers of Greenland and Iceland (Ch. 10, Smiarowski et al.), wild fowling and whaling in Scotland (Ch. 11, Serjeantson), salmon fishers on the west coast of North America (Ch. 32, Monks), the game spectra of the Hohokam (Ch. 33, Dean), the first hunter-gatherers and Olmec aquatic harvesting in Mexico (Chs 35, Arroyo-Cabrales & Corona-M., and 36, Peres), indigenous animal use in northwestern South America (Ch. 40, Stahl), and the divergent lifestyles of terrestrial hunters and coastal canoe people in Patagonia (Ch. 43, Borrero). That not all wild animal harvesting activities were aimed at food provisioning is demonstrated by chapters dealing with trade commodities, for instance the pelt trades in Russia (Ch. 15, Maltby) and North America (Ch. 37, Lapham), or the hunt for Walrus ivory in Greenland (Ch. 10, Smiarowski et al.), as well as the important chapter on urban animals in English towns (Ch. 14, O'Connor).

From the above account it is clear that Albarella's idea, that themes and methods of zooarchaeology worldwide would arise out of the case studies, works—even though (unsurprisingly) a patchy image emerges. The methodological basics of zooarchaeology, traditional and new, form the basis of all chapters, some (e.g. Chs 5, 12, 24, 40, 42, 46) even discussing methodological issues intensively. The most convincing results in the book, however, are gained via inclusion of other disciplines brought in to answer questions which sometimes reach deep into the respective societies. As most articles discuss food supply, archaeobotanical studies often go hand-in-hand with zooarchaeology (notably in Chs 6, 16, 22, 23, 28, 33, 40, 47); elsewhere the absence of discussion of botanical evidence is sometimes conspicuous. Written and pictorial evidence often closes gaps bone studies cannot fill (e.g. Chs 8, 15, 21, 31, 36, 39). This is particularly well demonstrated by Halstead and Isaakidou (Ch. 8), who use these as correctives for zooarchaeological data, and by Heinrich (Ch. 31) on the Dutch East India Company. Interpretational support is also found in modern ethnographic parallels (see Chs 25–27, 36, 44), again illustrating that zooarchaeology is also a social science. These are only some examples of how zooarchaeology integrates data from other sciences and humanities. The compilation demonstrates how empirical research, based on ‘biological’ remains forms the basis of interpretations tackling issues at the centre of the humanities (see the recent manifesto by Sykes, Reference Sykes2014). Accordingly, it helps to better establish historical material culture studies within the booming field of human-animal studies (DeMello, Reference DeMello2012).

It is self-evident that no book can deal with all forms of human-animal relationships in all cultures and regions of the world. Hence, this showcase of world zooarchaeology must remain incomplete; in some areas more, in others less. However, the book reflects the main strands of zooarchaeological research as well as regional idiosyncrasies, and it promotes promising and valuable niche work. The case studies are selected well, and given that seven of fifty-three chapters were lost on the way (Albarella, p. viii), it can be assumed that some chronological and spatial gaps were unintended.

In his Foreword, Bogucki writes: ‘I have always found boxes of bones, tabular counts of anatomical elements by species, and survivorship charts to be the sort of data that will open up a narrative of what people did and how a society lived’ (p. v). This describes this handbook well. Scholars willing to read many pages on bone counts and metrics, ageing, and statistics are rewarded with a plethora of stories, very often fascinating and eye opening, which altogether ‘can be read as an overview of world archaeology through the lens of animal bones and their interpretation’ (Bogucki, p. v).