Faunal Analysis

I'm working on this project through the National Parks Service.
It's a site called Cape Gull. It was originally found by people surveying damage done by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. The site dates back by over 800 years and features a Thule traditon.

There were mammals, fish, and bird bone found at the site. To start with I'm only looking at the bird bone.

Initially I set out to find the element name, meaning what bone each is, i.e. femur, vertebrae, etc.
Now that I've taken that as far as I can, I'm taking the Cape Gull bones and comparing them to samples of known birds in the UAA lab.

From these, you can detect either family, genus, or species of the bird depending on whether the bird being sought after is in the samples.
So far I believe I have found the sternum of a Black-legged Kittiwake, the furculum (wishbone) of a Herring Gull, and the scapula (shoulder blade) of a Double-crested Cormorant, among others.

This seems really interesting although tedious.
However, with time it should become a much easier process.

I think eventually I'll also want to try my hand at fish bone.
I like the water so I figure I should study things that live in it.