Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Evidence for early cat taming in Egypt
- The remains are described of a young small felid found in a Predynastic burial at Hierakonpolis, Upper Egypt. Osteometric and zoogeographical arguments indicate that the specimen, dated to around 3700 B.C. on the basis of the associated pottery, belongs to Felis silvestris. In the same cemetery several other animal species, both wild and domestic, have been found. The left humerus and right femur of the cat show healed fractures indicating that the animal had been held in captivity for at least 4e6 weeks prior to its burial. We believe that this pathology suggests early cat taming more convincingly than a buried cat recently reported from Neolithic Cyprus (7500 B.C.). Such taming events were probably part of the processes that eventually led to the domestication of Felis silvestris. However, the absence of the cat in Predynastic and Early Dynastic depictions and its rare attestation in the archaeozoological record indicates that domestic status had not yet been attained during those early periods. Other species that were also held in captivity by Ancient Egyptians probably never became domesticated because they had one or more characteristics that prevented it.
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The distinction of isolated bones from plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), flounder (Platichthys flesus) and dab (Limanda limanda): a description of the diagnostic characters
- The osteology of 38 skeletal elements is investigated in plaice, dextral and sinistral flounder, and dab with the aim of defining diagnostic characters that allow species identification of isolated bones from archaeological excavations. Five of these 38 skeletal elements have been mentioned in the literature as being diagnostic, but they appear to be unreliable for identification. All other elements allow identification, although only 23 permit the recognition of all three species. The individual bone elements and their diagnostic criteria are depicted and described in detail. Attention is paid to individual variation, and, when relevant, size-related morphological changes are also described. The keys that are developed for the various elements are finally tested on a large flatfish bone assemblage from an archaeological site. On the basis of these results, the success rate of the identifications for the various bones is discussed. Possible strategies for identification work on this group are suggested that take into account the extent of the reference collection, the time spent on the identifications and the experience needed in comparative osteology of these flatfish.
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Pig husbandry and environmental conditions in Northern Gaul during Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: the contribution of hypoplasia analysis
- Ongoing archaeozoological analyses into the Roman –early medieval transition in the fertile area of the Middle Belgian and Dutch loess region have shown a diachronic shift in the importance of pigs. The present paper examines the linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) of pig teeth from five sites covering the early Roman, late Roman and early medieval periods. The results are confronted with palynological, archaeological and textual data regarding land use and forest cover in an attempt to explain the observed trends in species composition and to document possible changes in pig husbandry and the environment.
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Oxygen and strontium isotopes as provenance indicators of fish at archaeological sites: the case study of Sagalassos, SW Turkey
- In this paper, we investigate the potential use of oxygen and strontium isotope ratios (d18Op and 87Sr/86Sr) measured in archaeological fish enamel as provenance indicators. d18Op and 87Sr/86Sr were measured in a suite of archaeological carp remains recovered from the Anatolian townsite of Sagalassos dated to the Early Byzantine period (AD 450e650) and compared to that of modern fish, river and lake waters from the Anatolian region. We used sequential leaches in weak acetic acid to remove diagenetic Sr from fossil tooth enamel, monitoring the effectiveness of this approach by measuring the Sr/Ca ratios of the leachates via an isotope dilution thermal ionization mass spectrometry method (ID-TIMS). d18Op values mostly excluded a riverine origin. 87Sr/86Sr ratios of one fish overlapped with the 87Sr/86Sr signatures of two lakes in the Anatolian region, and at least one lake (Gölcük) could be removed as a candidate owing to a very distinctive 87Sr/86Sr signature not found in any of the fish remains. Most of the tooth samples analyzed could not be assigned a precise geographical origin since the 87Sr/86Sr ratios measured in enamel did not match that of any of the local lakes selected as potential origin. This result suggests that carp may have originated from lakes that have not yet been sampled, although this conclusion is not supported by other archaeological evidence. Alternatively, the lack of correspondence between lakes and fish Sr isotope ratios highlights several possible sources of uncertainties including spatial heterogeneity in 87Sr/86Sr ratio within a lake, the contribution of dietary strontium to the 87Sr/86Sr ratio of fish tooth enamel, and post-mortem alteration of the tooth Sr isotope signal during fossilization. In spite of the high precision of the strontium isotope analyses and the wide range of variation in the surface waters of the Anatolian lakes and rivers, this method may remain limited to distinguishing between lakes situated in regions of bedrock of very distinct age and geology until these sources of uncertainty are more fully investigated.
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Living in times of war: waste of c. 1600 from two garderobe chutes in the castle of Middelburg-in-Flanders (Belgium)
- The material remains and environmental data recovered during a rescue excavation in 2002?03 in the castle of the new town of Middelburg-in-Flanders throw light on the site, region and landscape in wartime. The paper discusses the historical context at the turn of the 16th century, the excavation of the castle, the taphonomy of the chutes, the analysis of the artefacts and ecological data recovered from two garderobe chutes in the upper court, and concludes with a synthesis focussing on the interpretation of the excavated record in the historically attested natural and socio-economic disruption caused by the Spanish-Dutch War.
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Fish remains from three Upper Palaeolithic cave deposits in southern Belgium
- Fish remains are described that were excavated in the 19th century from Trou de Chaleux, Trou du Frontal and Trou du Sureau, three Upper Palaeolithic cave sites in the Meuse basin, Belgium. After a critical assessment of possible taphonomic agents acting in caves, it is concluded that the material — consisting mainly of medium-sized and large salmonids, burbot and cyprinids — is anthropogenic. Using present-day behavioural information on the identified fish species it is hypothesised that the exploited fish were an abundant and predictable food resource during the spawning season, when they occurred en masse in shallow, marginal waters. Finally the possible fishing techniques and the dietary role of freshwater fish in Palaeolithic times are discussed.
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The roman trade in salted Nilotic fish products : some examples from Egypt
- A description is given of two fi sh bone assemblages found at Mons Claudianus, a Roman site in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, and one from Quseir al-Qadim, a contemporaneous settlement on the Red Sea coast. The material is interpreted as the skeletal remains of salted fi sh products that were imported from the Nile Valley. In two cases the reconstructed sizes of the fi sh and the presence of articulating bones allow the defi nition of the fi sh product as salsamenta made from small Nilotic fi sh, rather than as fi sh sauce. Information about the seasoning of the product is provided in two cases by archaeobotanical data, and the analysis of the insect remains found in one of the assemblages provides evidence for local attack by carrion feeders feeding on the spoiled fi sh product. In addition, the presence of some of the beetle taxa representing pests typical for stored plant foods can only be explained as resulting from of the use of already infested plant ingredients during the preparation of the product. The analysis permits a comparison of these Nilotic fi sh bone assemblages to fi sh products found elsewhere in the Roman world. Older and more recent parallels are also briefl y discussed.
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The role of animals in the funerary rites at Dayr al-Barshā
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Animal remains from Mahal Teglinos (Kassala, Sudan) and the arrival of pastoralism in the Southern Atbai
- Faunal remains from Mahal Teglinos span the period from about 3000 to 1000 BC. They indicate that the arrival of cattle, sheep and goat in the region predates the occupation of the site, but the evidence available from other and older sites near Khashm-el-Girba does not suffice to document precisely the development of pastoralism and its consequences in the Southern Atbai. Among the limited mammalian game, the many gazelles and dikdiks point to steppe conditions, while the equally numerous buffalo remains suggest that this large bovid thrived in the seasonally inundated land along the Gash River.
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Ancient breeds of domestic fowl (Gallus gallus f. domestica) distinguished on the basis of traditional observations combined with mixture analysis
- Using a large assemblage of domestic fowl bones from a classical site, a methodology is presented that allows the recognition of breeds. The approach differs from previous research in which tarsometatarsi were used exclusively. In the present paper, frequency histograms of long bone lengths and mixture analysis were combined with observations on medullary bone development. By concentrating on the analysis of bones with medullary bone, only the securely sexed part of the population (the females) is considered, thereby avoiding problems related to the use of spur development in tarsometatarsi. Three breeds of different sizes could be recognized, of which the smallest shows a high incidence of spurred females.
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New evidence from a Roman context in Belgium for fish sauce locally produced in northern Gaul
- Fish remains from a mid-2nd century AD context at Tienen (Belgium) are believed to represent the remains of a fish sauce produced in northern Gaul. The observed species spectrum, the reconstructed sizes of the fish, and modern data on the abundance, geographical distribution and size of fish in the surf zone of the Belgian coast and in the estuary of the Scheldt basin, together indicate that the species present in the sauce were captured in the upper reaches of an estuary. Using similar reference data it was also possible to establish that the fish were caught during spring or early summer. After a discussion of the possible fish catching methods used in estuaries during Roman times, the assemblage from Tienen is compared to other Roman finds of locally produced fish sauce that have been reported thus far from sites in Great Britain and Belgium.
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Pickled fish from the Egyptian Nile: osteological evidence from a Byzantine (Coptic) context at Shanhûr
- During excavations of the early Roman temple of Shanhûr (near Luxor, Egypt) a large concentration of small fish bones was found in a younger occupation layer dated to the late 6th-early 7th century AD. The various taxa encountered in this Byzantine (Coptic) assemblage are described and quantified in terms of both number of fragments and minimum number of individuals. Fish lengths are reconstructed using power equations for those taxa for which sufficient modern reference material was available. After excluding natural taphonomic agents (otters, fish eating birds, natural death) it is argued that the deposit is anthropic and that the material represents the remains of fish sauce or of pickled fish. Other archaeozoological data from the literature, textual and archaeological evidence, as well as modern practices show that Nilotic fish were consumed in salted form from about 2500 years ago up to the present-day.
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The continuous exploitation of wild animal resources in the archaeozoological record from Ghana
- The paper provides a critical review of the archaeozoological information from Ghanaian sites published up to now and summarizes the new faunal analysis of several Gonja and Asante sites. The data suggest the persistence of the use of the various wild animal resources available and limited reliance on domestic animals since late prehistoric times up to today, although certain resources such as molluscs, insects etc. may have limited or no visibility. Intensive utilisation of edible wild resources may be prevalent in African woodlands.
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The emergence of fishing communities in the Eastern Mediterranean region : a survey of evidence from pre- and protohistoric periods
- The present overview deals with the fish remains found at Palaeolithic to Late Bronze Age sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. Attention is focussed on both marine and continental fisheries in Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia. After presenting a detailed inventory of the archaeofaunal data available in the literature, an attempt is made to document diachronic trends in marine exploitation and continental fishing of the region. The use of fish in ritual and religious practices is dealt with briefly and attention is also paid to fish as trade items.
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The Middle Holocene Shell Mound of El Gouna on the Red Sea (Egypt)
- In the El Gouna (Hurghada) area on the Red Sea of Egypt, a Middle Holocene shell mound from around 5800 B.P. (uncalibrated radiocarbon years before A.D. 1950) has been tested by a restricted excavation. Collection of shellfish on the Red Sea shore provided subsistence opportunities for Middle Holocene groups coeval with the Early Predynastic Tasian of the Nile Valley. The El Gouna site demonstrates for the first time that prehistoric shell mounds exist near the Egyptian Red Sea shore.
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Seasonality only works in certain parts of the year: The reconstruction of fishing seasons through otolith analysis
- Seasonality estimations using incremental data usually suffer from small sample sizes and from the lack of comparison with sufficiently large modern samples. The present contribution reports on incremental studies carried out on large assemblages of plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) from a late medieval fishing village (Raversijde, Belgium) on the North Sea coast. In an attempt to refine previous seasonality estimates made for this site, and to expand conclusions concerning general methodology, extensive monthly samples of modern otoliths of these species, caught within the North Sea, have also been investigated. The modern material shows that the timing of the seasonal changes in the edge type (hyaline or opaque) of the otoliths is extremely variable and that it is dependent on the fishing ground, the year considered, and the age of the fish. It also appears that the increase of the marginal increment thickness is highly variable, to such an extent that the thickness of the last increment of a single otolith is mostly useless for seasonality estimation. Where large archaeological otolith assemblages can be studied, preferably from single depositional events, seasonality determination becomes possible on the condition, however, that the archaeological assemblage corresponds to fish that were captured during their period of fast growth. The growth ring study on the otoliths from Raversijde shows that plaice fishing took place in spring and that it was preceded by a haddock fishing season, probably in late winter/early spring.
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Statistical treatment of trace element data and ancient animal bone : evaluation of Roman Byzantine environmental pollution
- Through chemical analysis of ancient animal bone found at the archaeological site of Sagalassos, and through comparison of the analytical data with that from modern bone and feed from the same location, conclusions on the ancient livestock are made. Samples of ancient and modern goat bone as well as Quercus coccifera were analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma–Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). After evaluation of the consistency of the chemical characteristics of different types of modern bone in one individual, it is decided to use the trace element data of long bone for statistical treatment. After evaluation of the degree and effects of diagenesis in the fossil bone, it is concluded that trace element data are useful indicators for anthropogenic palaeoenvironmental pollution, as a distinction could be made between elements that occur naturally in the bedrock and those that can be linked to industrial pollution. The occurrence or depletion of the latter elements in fossil bone, show diachronic changes in the chemical composition of the goat bones which can be explained in function of the changing catchment area from which the animals were obtained through time. It is conceivable that during periods of insecurity, such as the fifth to sixth century A.D. in the area of Sagalassos, animal herds were kept closer to the ancient town and would hence take up more pollutants with the ingested food. A lower uptake of pollutants during the fourth century, a rich and secure period in the history of the city, can be explained by a wider catchment area from which the goats were obtained.
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Growth changes in plaice, cod, haddock and saithe in the North Sea: a comparison of (post-)medieval and present-day growth rates based on otolith measurements
- Fishing effort has strongly increased in the North Sea since the mid-19th century, causing a substantial reduction in the population size of exploited fish stocks. As fisheries research has developed simultaneously with the industrialisation of the fisheries, our knowledge of population dynamics at low levels of exploitations is limited. Otoliths retrieved from archaeological excavations offer a unique opportunity to study growth rates in the past. This study compares historical and present-day growth rates for four commercially important demersal fish species. A total of 2532 modern otoliths (AD 1984–1999) and 1286 historical otoliths (AD 1200–1925) obtained from archaeological excavations in Belgium and Scotland were analysed. Comparison of the growth patterns between eras revealed a major increase in growth rate of haddock, whereas growth changes were not observed in saithe and only in the smaller size classes of plaice and cod. Comparison of our results with literature data indicates that the observed growth rate changes in plaice and cod occurred within the 20th century. Apparently the onset of industrialised fisheries has not greatly affected the growth of plaice, cod and saithe populations in the North Sea. This result contradicts the expectation of density-dependent limitation of growth during the era of pre-industrialised fishing, but is in agreement with the concentration hypothesis of Beverton (Neth. J. Sea Res. 34 (1995) 1) stating that species which concentrate spatially into nursery grounds during their early life-history may ‘saturate’ the carrying capacity of the juvenile habitat even though the adult part of the population is not limited by the adult habitat.
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The ancient fish fauna from Asa Koma (Djibouti) and modern osteometric data on 3 Tilapiini and 2 Clarias catfish species
- The fi sh fauna is presented from Asa Koma; a prehistoric site dated around 1800 cal BC and located in Djibouti near Lake Abhé. The site comprises numerous hearths from which the fi sh bones that form the majority of the faunal remains were recovered. Only two fi sh species occur, namely Oreochromis niloticus and Clarias gariepinus, which are also the two major taxa occurring in the saline lake today. The skeletal element distribution and the frequency of charred remains were analysed and, in addition, detailed size reconstructions were carried out. On the basis of modern skeletons from 47 tilapia and 39 Clarias, the metrical relationship between fi sh length and individual bone measurements (32 measuring distances for tilapia and 40 for Clarias) was established with the aid of the “least squares method”. The equations are all listed for future use by other researchers. The fi sh and other fauna do not allow a precise environmental reconstruction, but the large size of the Clarias possibly indicates less saline conditions than today. Using the reconstructed sizes of the fi sh from Asa Koma, modern data on the behaviour of the species, ethnographic and archaeological parallels, and palaeohydrological data, attempts are made to establish the most likely season of fi shing, the possible location of the fi shing grounds, and the fi shing methods that may have been used. Finally, the possible fi sh preparation and fi sh processing methods are discussed.
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Fish remains from archaeological sites as indicators of former trade connections in the Eastern Mediterranean
- The archaeozoological evidence that is available for the trade of fish in the Eastern Mediterranean area is summarized. This overview covers the Chalcolithic to the Crusader period and is based on data from 76 sites compiled from the literature and from as yet unpublished material under study by the authors. Remains of fish from the Nile, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea are regularly found in archaeological sites that are located outside the natural distribution of the fish species and thus indicate that they were transported as items of trade or exchange. Evidence for trade of Anatolian freshwater fish is also documented. The fish bone finds are discussed according to their provenance and the regions to which they were transported, and an attempt is made, on the basis of archaeological, artefactual and - if available - textual evidence, to understand the diachronic changes in the distribution within the broader economic and political contexts of the areas involved in the production and the consumption of fish.
