Being “human” means not being “Other”. However, the concepts of “human” and “Other” are by no means universal. As a modernist project, archaeology inherited a humanistic definition of what it means to be human, and this definition is still utilized in most cases today.
“Human”, on the other hand, is not a universal principle. In fact, there is no reason to suppose that a distinctly European, modernist definition of humanity is espoused in cultures then the one it originated in. It is to be expected that this definition does not have to hold ground in past societies either. Animals played an important role in defining what it means to be human, and at the same time emerged from definition of humanity.
Animals have been studied in archaeology from the very dawn of the discipline. They were used in dating different epochs in the history of the formation of the world and human prehistory. Animals were also studied in relation to subsistence (hunting, herding and domestication) and economy. Animal representations in the past were differently interpreted and connected to art, magic or religion, ritual and cultic activities, cognitive aspects etc.
Overall, animals played an important role in archaeological studies of past societies and they continue to do so.
Bearing in mind a vast history of research of animals in archaeology and the wide variety of data pertaining to animals in the past, human-animal relations in the past are a topic which calls for a discussion based on studies of different material remains from a wide range of theoretical and methodological backgrounds. This Conference is not solely zooarchaeological or archaeozoological, as we invite all students of archaeology, dealing or not with animal remains, to participate. We call for a diversity of approaches and contextualized studies of the material available. Thus, we invite students to participate in this challenging discussion covering different sub-topics:
Beyond Beauties and Beasts: Humanity-Animality : What does it mean to be human or animal in a certain society? Are these divisions universal? How do different societies conceptualize these divisions? Are there alternative taxonomies in the past? How do different societies conceptualize human-animal hybrids or animal-animal hybrids? Are these hybrids transitions from one category to another or they represent an entirely distinct entities? All these questions can be studied on different material remains, both animal remains and representations in material culture.
You are what you eat: Animals and Food Culture: Which animals are edible and which not?
How do different societies define which animals are to be eaten? Is certain animal based food allowed for everyone or not? How does status and identity of individual affect which animals or animal parts he or she can consume and in which contexts?
Fuzzy commodities : Economy, subsistence and animals: Which role do animals play in economies of different societies? Can they be treated as commodities and when? What is there place in trade and exchange which was in archaeology in majority of cases reserved for studies of material culture? How do concepts of wild and domesticated shape different

economies? What is the relation between economy, subsistence and animals in different societies?
Bone industry from A to Z: Exploring significance of the bone tools can give us valuable data about societies which made them. It is a story about choices, from source to making and using bone tools as final products. Why different animal bones are used for making specific tools?
Is this related only to economical practicality and technological aspects or there is something more to it. What is the role of bone tools in understanding different aspects of technology, craft and economy? How do we approach bone tools in effort to study human-animal relations?
Humans, animals and believes : Which role do animals play in different believe systems?
How do we study animals within archaeological studies of religion, cult or magic?
Chymera’s Tale: Animals as Subaltern: All previously raised questions are more stressing human relation towards animals than human-animal relations as social encounters. How than do we approach these issues from an animal’s point of view? This, is of course not only an impossible pursuit, but, at the same time, one which constructs animals as subaltern in archaeology. Are we to tell the stories of animals? How valid would these stories be than?
We propose studying encounters as a one possible way for further problematize of animals as subalterns.
These subtopics are only a narrow choice of different subtopics related to the general topic of the Conference. We hope that applicants will manage to work on some mentioned aspects of human-animal relations and we encourage papers that eventually do not conform to any of the mentioned subtopics. Only primary aim is diversity in both, studied material and theoreticalmethodological backgrounds and research questions. Thus we invite you to apply with different studies and research questions than ones we have proposed.
We have also prepared nonobligatory recommended readings for those applicants interested in some of the research questions we proposed:
Borić, Dušan. 2005. Body Metamorhosis and Animality: Volatile Bodies and Boulder
Artworks from Lepenski Vir. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15. 1: 35-69.
Borić, Dušan. 2007. Images of Animality: Hybrid Bodies and Mimesis in Early Prehistoric
Art In Image and Imagination: A Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation , ed. Collin
Renfrew and Iain Morley, 89-105. Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research.
Haraway, Donna J. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature . New
York: Routledge.
Haraway, Donna J. 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press.

Hughes, Jessica. 2010. Dissecting the Classical Hybrid. In Body Parts and Bodies Whole:
Changing Relations and Meanings , ed. Katharina Rebay-Salisbury, Marie Louise Stig
Sørensen and Jessica Hughes, 101-110. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Ingold, Tim (ed.) 1994. What is an Animal ? London: Routledge.
Rothfels, Nigel (ed.) 2002. Representing Animals.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Willis, Roy (ed.) 1990. Signifying Animals: Human Meaning in the Natural World . London:
Routledge.
Application guidelines
This is only a preliminary invitation intended to inform all potential applicants for participation. All application procedure will be in English. Titles and abstracts are also to be written in English. Abstracts should in the first phase only be preliminary, as there will be time for title and abstract change before the Conference. Abstracts should be up to 350 words.
We expect the lecturers to apply until 20. February 2013. and to send abstracts until the 01.
March 2013.
Applications, abstracts and other question related to the Conference are to be sent on
4thstarco@gmail.com.