This collection of papers is dedicated to Dr Ina Plug to celebrate her tremendous contributions to archaeozoology (or zooarchaeology) in a career that has so far spanned more than three decades. Contents: Preface; Ina Plug: A Tribute (Shaw Badenhorst); Zooarchaeology in Southern Africa: A View from the North (Terry O'Connor); Archaeozoology at the Transvaal Museum and Its Future in South Africa (Karin Scott); Models for Zooarchaeologists from Modern Bushmeat Studies (Jonathan C. Driver); The Contribution of Sibudu Fauna to an Understanding of KwaZulu-Natal Environments at 60 ka, 50 ka and 37 ka (Lyn Wadley, Ina Plug, and Jamie L. Clark); Variability and Change in Middle Stone Age Hunting Behaviour: Aspects from the Lithic and Faunal Records (Marlize Lombard and Jamie L. Clark); Archaeobiodiversity of Ichthyofaunas from the Holocene Sahel (Nadja Pollath, Joris Peters, and Helene Jousse); Shrews from Ein el Gazzareen, Dakhleh Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt (C.S. Churcher); Human and Animal Interaction on the Shire Highlands, Malawi: The Evidence from Malowa Rockshelter (Yusuf M. Juwayeyi); Early Herders in Southern Africa: A Synthesis (Andrew B. Smith); The Canine Connection: Dogs and Southern African Hunter-gatherers (Peter Mitchell); Fishing in the Senegal River during the Iron Age: The Evidence from the Habitation Mounds of Cubalel and Sioure (Wim Van Neer); Early Iron Age Regional Settlement and Demographic Patterns along the Eastern Seaboard of South Africa: A View from the Lower Thukela River Valley (Haskel J. Greenfield and Leonard O. van Schalkwyk); A Consideration of Livestock Exploitation during the Early Iron Age in the Thukela Valley, KwaZulu-Natal (Elizabeth R. Arnold); Social Memory and the Antiquity of Snake and Crocodile Symbolism in Southern Africa (Kent D. Fowler); Symbolic Animal Burials from the Venda Region in the Limpopo Province, South Africa (Louisa Hutten); Zhizo and Leopard's Kopje: Test Excavations at Simamwe and Mtanye, Zimbabwe (T.N. Huffman); Subsistence Change among Farming Communities in Southern Africa during the Last Two Millennia: A Search for Potential Causes (Shaw Badenhorst).

The approach of these papers is to evaluate the rapid environmental changes across the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary through its impact on human subsistence patterns. These patterns vary enormously in different regional areas and, in response to this, papers are drawn from Spain, Russia, Western Europe, the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Americas and Canada.