We document the dietary and economic role of fish at Sagalassos, a town in ancient Pisidia (southwest Turkey) for the Early Byzantine period (c. 550 – 700 CE) through a detailed analysis of animal bones and stable isotopes. The role of fish in the diet is quantified, for the first time, based on large samples of sieved remains retrieved during the excavation of a number of spaces in an urban residence. The table and kitchen refuse from the mansion shows that fish was a regular part of the diet. However, past isotopic work focused on human individuals excavated in the city’s necropolises, slightly postdating the faunal remains examined, did not reflect this consumption of aquatic food. The studied assemblage comprises at least 12 different fish taxa, including five marine species, a Nilotic fish and six Anatolian freshwater species. Since the origin of the freshwater fishes could not be unambiguously determined by zoogeography alone, we analyzed carbon, nitrogen and sulphur stable isotope ratios in archaeological fish bones from Sagalassos as well as in bones of modern fish collected at different sites in Turkey. We show that most freshwater fish, i.e., all cyprinid species, came from Lake Eğirdir. No evidence was found for fish from the local Aksu River basin. The exact origin of pike, which account for 3% of all freshwater fish, could not be directly determined due to a shortage of modern comparative data. Using the data obtained on the provenance of the fish, the ancient trade routes possibly used in the Early Byzantine period are reconstructed using a combination of archaeological, numismatic and historical data on past commercial relations.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Ostracode and other microfossil assemblages from the Tunisian Trough have previously been studied to characterize paleoenvironmental conditions during the late Danian interval. Whereas the preservation of foraminifera is generally not sufficient for stable isotope studies, well preserved ostracodes provide continuous upper Danian stable isotope records (δ13C, 18O) at Sidi Nasseur, W Tunisia. The late Danian is considered to cover a hyperthermal, known as the “Latest Danian Event” (LDE; ~61.75 Ma) or “Top C27n Event” and has been unequivocally identified in benthic foraminiferal isotopes from shelf sediments in Egypt and deep-sea material from the Pacific Ocean. Stratigraphic changes in the isotope ratios of the genus Bairdia reveal a rather scattered record for δ13C lacking any pronounced negative δ13C excursion, probably due to the many factors influencing δ13C in ostracodes like metabo- lism, diet or dissolved inorganic carbon of sea-water. The accompanying δ18O record is less ambiguous showing a shift towards lower values close to the level where the LDE is to be expected, but minimum values are similar to δ18O values at the base and top of the studied sequence. These data suggest that the core of the negative stable isotope excursions of the LDE is lost in the stratigraphic gap at the planktic foraminiferal P3a/P3b and calcareous nannofossil NTp7A/NTp7B subzonal boundaries, so that the LDE could not be unequivocally identified in Tunisia. A cross-plot of δ13C and δ18O of ostracode valves displays distinctive clusters for smooth-shelled taxa like Bairdia and others as well as for ornamented taxa, with the latter group showing substantially lower values for both δ13C and δ18O. This pattern strongly resembles those from early Eocene data from southwestern France and Recent ostracodes from the Iceland Plateau. The offsets suggest substantial differences in life style, food source or isotope fractionation during the calcification process for different shell morphologies in ostracodes.
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