Bird remains from the Starcevo and Lengyel culture settlements of the site Alsonyék-Bataszék (South-western Hungary (original) (raw)

The Diversity of Archaeological Animal and Plant Remains Discovered at 18th–19th-Century Sites in Ias,i City (NE Romania)

Animal and plant remains recovered from two archaeological sites in Ias,i city (NE Romania) were analyzed in this work. The aim of this study was to contribute to the economic and environmental evaluation of an old urban settlement. The analyzed sites, both of value in archaeological preventive research, are dated to the 18th–19th centuries. The archaeozoological analysis consisted of anatomical, taxonomic, and taphonomic identifications, quantification, estimations of age at slaughter and sex, and osteometry. The results revealed that the animal remains are of domestic origin, as indicated by traces of butchering, and can be mainly described in terms of their frequencies (i.e., number of identified specimens and minimum number of individuals), selection for slaughter, morphology, and size. The results show that animal husbandry (e.g., cattle, sheep/goat, pig, and horse) had significant importance in the economy of the settlement, and cattle were preferred for consumption. Few remains were identified for wild mammals (i.e., red deer, wild boar, and hare), birds, and mollusks. The phytolith analysis indicated that some plant resources were used in the economy of this settlement. The identification of opal silica bodies revealed the presence of grasses and cultivated cereals.

Tarihöncesi Toplumlarda İnsan-Hayvan İlişkisi ve Orta Anadolu Çanak Çömleksiz Neolitik Dönem Faunası

Çizgi Kitabevi, 2019

Humans have been living with other animals side by side since the beginning of their journey on this planet, and have inevitably been dependent on them for various needs and conditions. In one hand, completely relying on natural resources, the prehistoric people had to hunt and heavily exploit other animals for meat and animal products which were very essential for their survival. On the other hand, animals were worshiped, respected and considered to be very vital in different symbolic activities of human groups since Palaeolithic period. Consequently, as like present human societies, the human-animal relationships in prehistoric period were also very complex and multi-dimensional. Throughout many periods of cultural evolution, perhaps the most crucial stage of human-animal relationships occurred in Neolithic period, particularly during the early phase of Aceramic Neolithic period when human groups were advancing towards a settled socio-cultural and subsistence pattern giving up their nomadic hunting-gathering lifestyle. Contrary to previous periods, Neolithic societies started to live permanently in a certain place throughout the year and hunt animals mainly available in their local environment. Animal species too were forced to cope with this very strange and completely new change in their habitat. Consequently, both humans and animals were going through some very significant and life-changing mutual relationships, which eventually encouraged the domestication of certain ungulate animals in Anatolia and West Asia. Therefore, the essence of the detail study on these complex relationships during this transitional period comes first, if studying any crucial aspect of the human-animal relationships. Providing that the Central Anatolia is among the most important core regions of Neolithisation, this study attempts to explore multi-scale aspects of human-animal-environmental interactions in Central Anatolian Pre-Pottery Neolithic Settlements throughout a period of about one thousand five hundred years.