Placer extraction in Puck Bay, a shallow (3 m depth) area of the Baltic Sea, resulted in the formation of post-dredging pits. Such dredging activities led to a considerable local disturbance of the soft-bottom communities. Topography and sedimentary characteristics of the disturbed area have been radically changed. It is therefore a matter of concern as to whether these alterations to the environment resulted in any serious permanent changes to the biological communities in the affected areas. Benthic copepod assemblages were examined 10 years after termination of placer digging in one of the post-dredging pits and compared with the fauna in a natural depression (Kuźnicka Hollow) and on the shallow sandy bottom surrounding the pits. Samples were collected on four occasions in 2001–2003. This study has generated ecological information on the status of harpacticoid species inhabiting the dredged and undredged areas in the vicinity. Analyses of data showed that the sampling stations differed significantly, during all the sampling events, in harpacticoid abundance, taxonomic composition and Shannon–Wiener diversity index. The natural depression and the shallow sandy bottom of Puck Bay were found to support specific harpacticoid assemblages. Interstitial and sand-burrowing species (e.g. Paraleptastacus spinicauda) dominate the shallow sandy bottom, and the Kuźnicka Hollow is inhabited mainly by epibenthic and silt-burrowing species (e.g. Halectinosoma curticorne, Tachidius discipes, Microarthridion littorale). The post-dredging pit assemblage showed the presence of epibenthic species, e.g. Tachidius discipes, Dactylopusia euryhalina, and Stenhelia palustris, passively transported into the pit by wave action and currents, possibly with algal mats and/or plant remains. The taxonomic composition and occurrence of harpacticoid species in the post-dredging area is therefore random and accidental.
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Ethnographical, historical and archaeological evidence suggests that a great diversity in pig husbandry may have existed in the past. However, such diversity remains difficult to document from traditional zooarchaeological methods and its study may necessitate the implementation of combined methodological approaches. An integrated dental analysis, combining kill-off patterns, traditional and geometric morphometrics, linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), microwear and stable isotope (δ18O,δ13C, δ15N) data, has been performed on assemblages from the neighbouring sites of Düzen Tepe and Sagalassos (SW Turkey) dated to Classical-Hellenistic to Byzantine time periods. Results indicate a diachronic evolution in slaughter practices, and a gradual decrease in pig mean size from the Early-Middle Imperial to the Byzantine. The seasonality of physiological stressing events remains the same, although their intensity varies through time. During the Early Byzantine period (CE 450–700), pig demographic management is characterized by two birth seasons, and a great diversity in diet and scale of management occurred, from free-ranging pigs – whether or not given food supplement - to closely confined wellwatered and more omnivorous pigs.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2017
