Elizabeth S. Wing (born 5 March 1932) is a zooarchaeologist and Curator Emerita at the

Florida Museum of Natural History The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, Gaine ...

(FLMNH). She was the first woman to earn a doctorate in zoology from the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

. She is one of the founders of the subfield of

zooarchaeology Zooarchaeology or archaeozoology merges the disciplines of zoology and archaeology, focusing on the analysis of animal remains within archaeological sites. This field, managed by specialists known as zooarchaeologists or faunal analysts, examines ...

, the study of animal remains from archaeological sites, and

environmental archaeology Environmental archaeology is a sub-field of archaeology which emerged in the 1970s and is the science of reconstructing the relationships between past societies and the environments they lived in. The field represents an archaeological-palaeoec ...

, the study of past human relationships with their environments. She is Member Emerita of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. Wing was born on in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. As a child she lived in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. As a teen, her family lived in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, MA where she volunteered at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Museum of Comparative Zoology The Museum of Comparative Zoology (formally the Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology and often abbreviated to MCZ) is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three natural-history r ...

. Wing earned her Bachelor's degree in

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

from Mt. Holyoke College before beginning her graduate studies at the University of Florida in the 1950s. She founded the Zooarchaeology Laboratory at the

in 1961, one of the first laboratories of zooarchaeology in the world. She helped establish the International Council for Archaeozoology, participating in its first organizational meeting in 1971. In 1978, she was hired as Curator at the FLMNH. Wing's research addresses the zooarchaeology of the southeastern United States, Caribbean, and Andean region. Wing received the Fryxell Award Award for Interdisciplinary Research from the Society for American Archaeology in 1996. Wing retired from the University of Florida in 2001, and was elected to the International Council for Archaeozoology's Committee of Honor in 2002. In 2006, she was inducted into the

(now Emeritus) and was awarded the University of Florida's President's Medallion.

Selected publications

* Newsom, Lee A.; Elizabeth S. Wing (2004). On land and sea: Native American uses of biological resources in the West Indies.

University of Alabama Press The University of Alabama Press is a university press founded in 1945 and is the scholarly publishing arm of the University of Alabama. An editorial board composed of representatives from all doctoral degree granting public universities within Al ...

, Tuscaloosa. . * Reitz, Elizabeth J.; Elizabeth S. Wing (2008). Zooarchaeology. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology (2 ed.).

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

. . * Wing, Elizabeth S.; Antoinette B. Brown (1979). Paleonutrition: Method and Theory in Prehistoric Foodways.

Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It launched a British division in the 1950s. Academic Press was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier said in 2000 it would buy Harcourt, a deal complete ...

. . * Wing, Elizabeth S.; Wheeler, Jane C. (1988). Economic prehistory of the central Andes. BAR international series 427, Oxford. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wing, Elizabeth S. Living people 1932 births American archaeologists Zooarchaeologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences University of Florida alumni Mount Holyoke College alumni University of Florida faculty