Carcass butchery is a culturally mediated behavior that reflects the technological, social, economic, and ecological factors that influence human diet and foodways. Butchery behavior can thus reveal a great deal about the lives of past peoples. Actualism provides a critical link between the dynamics of carcass butchery and the static remains of the archaeological record. This study provides an overview of actualistic butchery studies in zooarchaeology over the past century and a half. A systematic search through the English literature identified a total of 236 such studies published between 1860 and 2021. Thematic analysis revealed several trends. The most common themes have been the identification of signature criteria for different taphonomic effectors, the use of butchery traces to characterize the nature of human intervention with carcasses, and the documentation of butchery in an ethnoarchaeological context. Methodologically, the bulk of this research has focused on the butchery of large bovids with lithic implements, largely as a means to explore Paleolithic subsistence. Actualistic approaches will benefit from (1) additional work with non-bovid taxa and with other tool raw materials, (2) applications to broader anthropological issues, and (3) a concerted effort to replicate existing studies and design future studies with replication in mind.

屠宰屠宰是一种以文化为媒介的行为，反映了影响人类饮食和饮食方式的技术、社会、经济和生态因素。因此，屠杀行为可以揭示大量有关过去人们生活的信息。现实主义在屠宰尸体的动态与考古记录的静态遗迹之间提供了关键的联系。这项研究概述了过去一个半世纪动物考古学中现实的屠宰研究。对英语文献的系统检索发现了 1860 年至 2021 年间发表的总共 236 项此类研究。主题分析揭示了一些趋势。最常见的主题是确定不同埋藏效应器的特征标准，利用屠宰痕迹来描述人类对尸体干预的性质，以及在民族考古学背景下记录屠宰行为。从方法上来说，这项研究的大部分集中在用石器工具屠宰大型牛科动物，主要作为探索旧石器时代生存的一种手段。现实主义方法将受益于（1）对非牛科动物类群和其他工具原材料的额外工作，（2）应用于更广泛的人类学问题，以及（3）共同努力复制现有研究并在考虑复制的情况下设计未来研究。