Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
-
Exploitation of desert and other wild game in ancient Egypt: the archaeozoological evidence from the Nile Valley
- Bone evidence for wild game found at Late Palaeolithic to New Kingdom sites in the Egyptian Nile Valley is summarised. The compiled data indicate that hartebeest, aurochs and gazelle were the main species hunted during the Late Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic. Populations of hartebeest and aurochs were essentially limited to the Nile Valley proper, whereas gazelles could be found in semi-desert and desert environments as well. The population densities of hartebeest and aurochs were probably never very high because of the narrow floodplain, especially in Upper Egypt, and the seasonal effect of the inundations of the Nile. From the Neolithic onwards, domestic livestock took over the role of game as the most important meat provider. Nevertheless, hunting continued to be practiced, and bones of wild game seem to be more important in contexts associated with elite sections of society and/or with ritual activities. Populations of hartebeest and aurochs declined after the Palaeolithic, no doubt because of competition with humans and their flocks. During the Predynastic period, the decline is most clear in Upper Egypt, where from then onwards, the emphasis shifts to gazelles. The Predynastic elite cemetery at Hierakonpolis (locality HK6) yielded the oldest osteological evidence of keeping wild animals in confinement. During the Old to New Kingdom periods, game animals continue to be found in small quantities and from then on, the populations of aurochs and hartebeest may also have started to decline in Lower Egypt. The animals found in the archaeozoological record of the Dynastic period differ from those in the iconographic sources, both quantitatively and qualitatively, except for the gazelles which occur frequently both in the faunal remains and on depictions. The discrepancies can partly be due to the fact that very few ritual, archaeological contexts with fauna are available. The most striking observation from this survey is that true desert animals, such as addax, oryx and ibex, are extremely rare in the archaeozoological record of all periods of the Nile Valley and that the sparse bone finds hence contradict the abundant occurrence and exploitation of these animals suggested by Dynastic iconographical data.
-
Les restes de poissons des niveaux du paléolithique moyen et supérieur de la grotte Walou
- Les quelque trois cents restes de poissons trouvés de 1996 à 2004 dans les diverses couches stratigraphiques de la grotte Walou contribuent à une meilleure connaissance des stratégies d’acquisition des ressources alimentaires des groupes paléolithiques qui ont occupé la cavité. Aucune différence écologique diachronique n’a cependant pu être mise en évidence.
-
Contexte chronostratigraphique et paléoenvironnemental de la séquence de la grotte Walou : synthèse et perspectives
- Ce chapitre propose une synthèse de l’ensemble des disciplines présentées dans les deux premiers volumes consacrés aux fouilles 1996-2004 à la grotte Walou (volume 1 : sciences de la terre ; volume 2 : sciences de la vie et datations). Il livre un cadre précis aux données archéologiques analysées dans le troisième et dernier volume de cette monographie, ainsi que des perspectives relatives tant aux recherches qui restent à entreprendre à Walou qu’à celles qui concernent les remplissages des autres grottes du bassin mosan.
-
Defining ‘natural’ fish communities for fishery management purposes: biological, historical and archaeological approaches
-
Fish remains from the Bir Messaouda excavations 2000/2001 and other Carthaginian settlement contexts
-
The 1997-1999 surveys of the Anatolian fish fauna and their relevance to the interpretation of trade at Sagalassos
-
New radiocarbon dates from Carthage: bridging the gap between history and archaeology?
-
Shops and retail in late Antiquity: a contextual approach to the material evidence from Sagalassos
-
Fishing in the Senegal River during the Iron Age: the evidence from the habitation mounds of Cubalel and Siouré
- A description is given of the fish remains from six settlement mounds located along the Senegal River that cover an occupation of approximately 1800 years. The 22 fish taxa found at the sites are described and attention is focussed on their spatial and, especially, temporal distribution. The place and season of capture are established and the possible fishing techniques are reconstructed. Using diachronic trends seen in the size distribution of the fish, it is argued that the ichthyofauna of the Middle Senegal Valley already shows effects of overfishing during the course of the first millennium AD.
-
Paléoenvironnement
-
Biologically-controlled mineralization in the hypercalcified sponge Petrobiona massiliana (Calcarea, Calcaronea)
- Hypercalcified sponges, endowed with a calcium carbonate basal skeleton in addition to their spicules, form one of the most basal metazoan group engaged in extensive biomineralization. The Mediterranean species Petrobiona massiliana was used to investigate biological controls exerted on the biomineralization of its basal skeleton. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM, TEM) confirmed that basopinacocytes form a discontinuous layer of flattened cells covering the skeleton and display ultrastructural features attesting intense secretory activity. The production of a highly structured fibrillar organic matrix framework by basopinacocytes toward the growing skeleton was highlighted both by potassium pyroantimonate and ruthenium red protocols, the latter further suggesting the presence of sulfated glycosaminoglycans in the matrix. Furthermore organic material incorporated into the basal skeleton was shown by SEM and TEM at different structural levels while its response to alcian blue and acridine orange staining might suggest a similar acidic and sulfated chemical composition in light microscopy. Potassium pyroantimonate revealed in TEM and energy electron loss spectroscopy (EELS) analysis, heavy linear precipitates 100–300 nm wide containing Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions, either along the basal cell membrane of basopinacocytes located toward the decalcified basal skeleton or around decalcified spicules in the mesohyl. Based on the results of the previous mineralogical characterization and the present work, an hypothetical model of biomineralization is proposed for P. massiliana: basopinacocytes would produce an extracellular organic framework that might guide the assemblage of submicronic amorphous Ca- and Mg-bearing grains into higher structural units.
-
Archéozoologie
-
Faunal remains from the Tree Shelter site
-
Contextual analysis at Sagalassos
-
Two late antique residential complexes at Sagalassos
-
Fish remains from Bronze Age to Byzantine levels
-
A palaeolithic site at Wadi Bili in the Red Sea Mountains, Egypt
-
The zooarchaeological reconstruction of the development of the exploitation of the sea : a status quaestionis for Flanders
-
Applicability of DNA barcoding to museum specimens of birds from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- The ornithological collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels contain approximately 155 000 specimens collected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) . They include type specimens and other samples from historical populations that represent an exceptional source of information for exploring how habitat fragmentation due to deforestation or global climate changes affect patterns of biodiversity in African birds . By attempting to obtain DNA sequences from these archive collections we intend to make them useful for genetic studies and to contribute to a reference library of DNA sequences, thus allowing the future iden- tification of Central African bird species through DNA barcodes . Our project aims to sequence approximately 950 mu- seum specimens, representing 225 species, collected between 1845 and 2008 . Our preliminary results reveal that the degradation of DNA in most museum specimens does not allow the amplification of the standard DNA barcode fragment (694 bp) . Nevertheless, we have been able to sequence shorter fragments (298 bp and 100 bp) for the majority of the selected specimens, implying that the collections in the RMCA and the RBINS contain DNA information that remains useful for barcoding purposes . More elaborate experiments might yield longer DNA sequences for phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies .
-
Application of Isoelectric Focusing in Molluscan Systematics
- The application of isoelectric focusing (IEF) in molluscan sys- tematics is reviewed and illustrated using literature data and unpublished analyses. IEF can be used as any other electro- phoretic method, but is most appropriate for: (1) generating complex species-specific banding profiles, (2) assessing overall genetic similarities, (3) supplementing conventional electro- phoretic techniques by resolving hidden protein variation and (4) investigating minute organisms.
