April M. Beisaw
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aprilmbeisaw.bsky.social
April M. Beisaw
@aprilmbeisaw.bsky.social
Anthropology professor @Vassar College. Fulbrighter @Natural History Museum Vienna. The Archaeology of American Protests (2025), Taking Our Water for the City: Archaeology of NYC Watershed Communities (2022), Identifying & Interpreting Animal Bones (2013).
First look at The Archaeology of American Protests in print with @floridapress.bsky.social
October 5, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Roadside #archaeology - broken cat ceramic vessel.
September 11, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Ursus arctos crania #zooarchaeology
June 18, 2025 at 12:12 PM
The first sacral vertebra of three bears, each presenting slightly differently. 🐻 🐻 🐻 #zooarchaeology
June 17, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Strange pathology on a domestic pig tibia from an archaeological site #zooarchaeology
June 11, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Mandible of a domestic breed of pig (pot belly). Humans can significantly alter the biology of other species. #zooarchaeology
June 11, 2025 at 2:02 PM
The mandible of a wild pig followed by that of a domestic breed #zooarchaeology
June 11, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Full session abstract as screenshot below. Message me for other formats.

Organized by Haylee Backs (hbacks@bu.edu) and Valerie Hall (vhall@umd.edu)

Participants include @dianewallman.bsky.social and me @aprilmbeisaw.bsky.social
June 11, 2025 at 5:48 AM
Vienna nights
June 5, 2025 at 7:58 PM
A brown bear with significant arthritis in its right wrist. Left forearm had a healed fracture so the bear likely over used his right arm to compensate.
June 5, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Wise words from
Vienna.
June 3, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Excellent choice! And once in there was a slice of each, no additional choices needed.
May 31, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Pick a direction….
May 31, 2025 at 4:48 PM
A quick sketch of an articulated 2 year old bear with red indicating likely cause of death, a rib fracture and infection of the bone. #zooarchaeology
May 27, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Vienna was calling me to visit the grave of Falco.
May 14, 2025 at 2:34 PM
One comically small cloud floating over the Vienna skyline today #FulbrightAustria
May 13, 2025 at 9:01 AM
I went back to the Hallstatt Bronze Age pig femurs and found 1 convincingly similar femur drilled hole and 6 possibly drilled femurs out of 161 distal femuri. That is 4% frequency. #zooarchaeology
May 12, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Today’s “strange bones from the Bronze Age” is a distal pig femur with a very symmetrical hole drilled into it but not all the way through the spongy bone. Occurs on only 1 of 5 distal femurs from this site and have not seen it on pigs from other sites in region. #zooarchaeology
May 12, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Pathological pig feet. To the right and left of the comparative specimen are Bronze Age metatarsal 5 with pathological growth suggesting that the feet were bound as the pigs grew. #zooarchaeology
May 6, 2025 at 10:21 AM
#zooarchaeology friends, does this pit on the neck of the scapula look like something you have seen before and have an interpretation of? These are Bronze Age domestic pig and out of 200+ scapulae these 2 are the only ones with these pits. They are from different contexts in the same Austrian site.
May 5, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Similar pathologies on the ulna of 2 very different animals from 2 very different time periods and with very different ages. A black bear of 12+ years old and a domestic pig of less than 3.5 years old. Both captive/domestic. #zooarchaeology
April 24, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Juvenile lower 3rd molar of a Bronze Age domestic pig looks like a mountain landscape. #zooarchaeology
April 24, 2025 at 9:57 AM
I’m giving a book talk at UC Dublin on Thursday (April 20) that covers my research on the NYC water system. I’ll also be working on the new Fulbright research project thanks to meetings with a curator at the National Museum & zooarchaeologists at the university.
April 15, 2025 at 10:57 AM
I have become the master of these pig feet! Also, when I close my eyes I see pig bones. 😵‍💫
April 11, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Anthropologie at the @nhmwien.bsky.social
April 2, 2025 at 10:59 AM