Welcome to The University of Tulsa Belmaker Paleoecology and Zooarchaeology Lab! Our focus is on the past and present ecological and evolutionary relationships between humans and their environment. We analyze faunal material recovered from archaeological sites dating to the past 2 Million years from the Levant, Caucasus, Central and East Asia, and the U.S. The lab maintains an extensive comparative collection of vertebrate skeletal remains and houses original fossil material on loan from archaeological and paleontological sites worldwide.

We welcome researchers from around the world!

Faunal collections are studied to identify relationships between humans and animals and to identify ecological unknowns about prehistoric populations. Topics researched include diet, behavior, and technology through food procurement and processing techniques, as well as what role the environment plays in these interactions.

Zooarchaeological (Zoo = animal and Archaeology = the study of ancient materials) analysis focuses on human dietary customs and subsistence patterns. This type of analysis emphasizes the analysis of medium to large mammals and utilizes our vertebrate comparative collection.

Paleoecological (Paleo = ancient and Ecology = the study of the environment) focuses on analyzing the human environment. To reconstruct the environment, we use small mammal assemblages and apply ecometric methods that aim to reconstruct the diet of herbivores using the morphology, biogeochemistry, and antemortem changes of teeth.