Zooarchaeological Evidence for Environmental Change and Hunting Practices at Late Holocene Sites in Nasarawa State

Zooarchaeological analysis of faunal assemblages from Late Holocene sites offers a sensitive record of both environmental change and human subsistence decisions across the forest-savanna mosaic of central Nigeria, a region whose ecological history remains poorly documented for the period following three thousand years before present. This study analyses faunal assemblages from three Late Holocene sites in Nasarawa State using a comprehensive zooarchaeological protocol including taxonomic identification, quantification (NISP and MNI), mortality profiling, body part representation analysis, and taphonomic assessment. The combined assemblage of over four thousand identifiable specimens spans a taxonomic range including large savanna mammals, forest duikers, waterfowl, reptiles, and freshwater fish, indicating exploitation of multiple habitat types. Diachronic comparison across site phases reveals a statistically significant reduction in large mammal body size between earlier and later phases, consistent with either environmental woodland contraction or hunting pressure reducing large mammal population density. The intensification of fish and small game exploitation in later phases may represent a dietary buffering response to declining large game availability. Mortality profiles for domesticated cattle and goat in the uppermost phases indicate a mixed production strategy combining meat offtake with secondary product use, suggesting growing pastoral integration at the site level. These findings are situated within the regional palaeoenvironmental literature, contributing an independent biological dataset to the reconstruction of Late Holocene ecological change in the Middle Benue zone. Keywords: zooarchaeology, Late Holocene, Nasarawa State, environmental change, hunting strategies.