Archaeology
News & Context

× Call for Papers 17–22 May 2027

Call for Abstracts ICAZ 2027 (Vancouver, Canada)

The International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ) has opened the call for papers for its 2027 conference in Vancouver, Canada. OVIS is co-organising the session "Developing Islandscapes: Animals, mobility and environmental practices", convened by Dr. Lua Valenzuela-Suau and Prof. Richard Madgwick.

Island contexts offer exceptionally diverse yet structurally comparable settings for studying the relationships between livestock management, landscape transformation, and climate change. The session invites contributions that apply zooarchaeological methods — including isotope analysis, dental microwear, ancient DNA, biometry, or studies of species introductions — to explore subsistence strategies and adaptive mechanisms developed in island contexts around the world.

Hybrid session · Vancouver, Canada · 17–22 May 2027. Abstract submission deadline: 25 August. Submissions are made online through the conference form.

× Conference 20–21 February 2026

OVIS at the 10th Archaeology Conference of the Balearic Islands

This past February, Palma (Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain) hosted the 10th Archaeology Conference of the Balearic Islands, organised by the Archaeology Section of the Association of Historians of the Balearic Islands.

As part of the conference, the OVIS project was presented to the archaeological community working in the Balearic Islands through the poster titled "OVIS: Origins of Variability in Island Systems. Unravelling livestock diet and mobility across the Bronze–Iron Age transition". The presentation was given by research fellow Dr. Lua Valenzuela-Suau and the project supervisor, Prof. Richard Madgwick. The session set out the project's main objectives, the chosen methodology, and the expected results.

Several earlier zooarchaeological studies that form the starting point of the research carried out within OVIS were also presented. Specifically, the works "Livestock exploitation and environmental management at the naveta settlement of Clariana (Ciutadella, Menorca): integrating faunal, isotopic and dental microwear data" (Dr. Lua Valenzuela-Suau and Dr. Damià Ramis) and "Animals and rituality in cave no. 45 of Calescoves (Alaior, Menorca)" (Dr. Lua Valenzuela-Suau, Dr. Sonia Carbonell and Dr. Margalida Antònia Coll) were introduced.

Taking part in this conference was an excellent opportunity to share the first outlines of the OVIS project and to open up spaces for discussion with researchers specialising in Balearic prehistory.

× Conference 25 February 2026

We take part in the 13th Víctor Guerrero Seminar Series at the University of the Balearic Islands

This past February we had the opportunity to take part in the "13th Víctor Guerrero Seminar Series", organised by the Department of Historical Sciences and Theory of the Arts at the University of the Balearic Islands.

The lecture, titled "Uniformity or diversity? Livestock management in the Balearic Islands during the Bronze Age", offered an overview of current knowledge on livestock management during this prehistoric period. The talk paid particular attention to the data obtained through zooarchaeology, stable isotopes, and dental microwear studies — key tools for understanding the diet, mobility, and management strategies of the herds.

This research is the starting point of the OVIS project, focused on the study of livestock practices and the socio-economic dynamics of Balearic Island communities during late prehistory.

We would like to thank the organisers for the invitation and the opportunity to share and discuss these lines of research within the seminar.

× Poster February 2026

OVIS project poster

Scientific poster of the OVIS project — "Origins of Variability in Island Systems. Unravelling livestock diet and mobility across the Bronze–Iron Age transition" — presented at the 10th Archaeology Conference of the Balearic Islands.