39 Results Found

Knowledge of the historical and present dynamics of populations of migratory fish can promote our understanding of factors affecting their recruitment and abundance. Taxonomic identification of 23,802 bone remains and 13,539 scales of fish from 30 ar...

A first attempt has been made to systematically present the achievements of several archaeozoological fields in Bulgaria: archaeomalacology, archaeoichthyology, archaeoherpetology, archaeornithology, and archaeomammalogy. The main results and some of...

Knowledge about horses from early medieval (10th–13th c.) Poland has been largely based on historical and archaeological data. Archaeozoological information has only been used to a limited extent. Therefore, this article aims to present the cur...

Roman Limesgebiet was both a border between the Greco–Roman world and barbaricum, but also the contact area between these two parts of the ancient oicumene. In Moesia Inferior, this area was established after the Roman conquest in the 1st centu...

The first part of our research focuses on the analysis of animal remains (>6000 identified specimens, NISP) from the Middle La Tène central settlement Haselbach in Lower Austria, one of the largest investigated archaeozoological assemblages...

This paper discusses the discoveries of early donkey and the earliest mule remains in Central Anatolia from the site Derekutuğun. This site represents the remains of a village dating back to the Early Bronze Age and Assyrian Trade Colonies perio...

The purpose of this article was to determine the role of wild animals in the economy of a historical city on the basis of archaeological and cultural layers of medieval and early modern Wrocław from the 11th to the 17th century. Archaeozoological ana...

In this study, we try to combine traditional archaeozoological biometry, based on outer bone measurements, with stable isotope analyses of bone collagen. Right from the start of archaeozoological research in Central and Western Europe, the important...

This work proposes to contribute through an interdisciplinary perspective to the evaluation of paleoeconomic and paleoenvironmental changes during Middle Holocene in Southwestern Transylvania. The study integrates archaeozoological data with phytolit...

The present paper deals with the archaeozoological investigation carried out on a horse skeleton discovered in a Late Iron Age La Tène tomb (coded CX 143) in Alba Iulia, Romania. The paper presents all the results of the investigation, with a...

The Bronze Age in Europe is characterized by major socio-economic changes, including certain aspects of animal husbandry. In the Alpine region archaeozoological data, though not very abundant, reveal that cattle were the most important domestic anima...

The 78 faunal remains recovered from the Ribadeo I shipwreck, identified as the San Giacomo di Galizia galleon found at the Ribadeo estuary of north-west Spain, represent a very small part of the meaty provisions that this 16th-century warship would...

Animal and plant remains recovered from two archaeological sites in Iași 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...

This study aims to contribute to the knowledge of the medieval Moldovan economy by evaluating animal resources (e.g., animal husbandry, hunting, fishing) based on the skeletal remains found in archaeologic sites from northeastern Romania and the Repu...

Fluctuations in the size of taurine cattle (Bos taurus) have been regularly demonstrated using archaeozoological data from across time and space in Europe, and have been linked to cultural, social and economic changes, but little is known about wheth...

Animal husbandry played a central role in the economy of medieval Croatia, yet little comparative archaeozoological research was performed on noble and monastic sites. The aim of the present paper is to compare the proportions and use of cattle, shee...

Some of the deposits of animal remains documented throughout prehistory and history are clearly something other than ordinary waste from meat consumption. For the Roman period and based on their characteristics, these assemblages have been classified...

Humans have developed a special relationship with some animal species throughout history, even though these animals were never domesticated. Based on raptors, bears, beavers, and elks, the question of whether there are similarities between the percep...

The work is the first comprehensive analysis of equine pathological changes from the Polish territory. The research material was collected from 20 archaeological sites, mainly early medieval settlements, such as strongholds, settlements, towns and ho...

This study investigated the historical consumption of pork in Croatia through a comprehensive analysis of pig bones from six medieval archaeological sites, comprising three castles and three monasteries dating from the 13th to the 16th century A.D. E...

This paper reviews changes to lifecycle temporality in Southwest Asian plant and animal domestication, exploring their relationship to long-term processes associated with ancient and contemporary globalization. We survey changes under domestication t...

Archeozoological studies provide an insight into human–environment relations, bringing important information on the morphology of the animal and the role of the animal and its functions. The purpose of this study was to reveal the morphological...

During the Viking era and the Middle Ages, in the Baltic Sea area, the remains of alien animal species are found rarely but recurrently. These species, which were previously widely distributed in other regions, were originally considered “exoti...

The results of a review of the chelonian remains retrieved in the excavations carried out in Mealhada (Coimbra, central Portugal) are presented here. Mealhada is a Portuguese Middle Palaeolithic classical site, discovered at the end of the 19th centu...

The significance of birds in the medieval human diet has been greatly explored in Europe. However, there is a lack of systematic analysis of data from Croatia. Avian remains dated to the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods from five archaeological...

A first attempt has been made to present a general composition of birds found in Chalcolithic settlements in the plains and lowlands of Bulgaria. Based on data from 21 settlements, 78 bird taxa (including 3 domestic forms) have been identified. Of th...

This article pertains to the issue of early medieval dogs (10th–mid-13th century) from the territory of Poland and Central Europe. The study is based on dog remains from the Wroclaw Cathedral Island (Ostrów Tumski), one of the most important administ...

Sheep were one of the first livestock species domesticated by humans. After initial domestication in the Middle East they were spread across Eurasia. The modern distribution of endogenous Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus insertions in domestic sheep breed...

A special part of archaeology, so-called archaeozoopathology or veterinary paleopathology is dedicated to studies of paleopathological changes in animal remains and contributes to the knowledge of ancient veterinary medicine and the history of diseas...

Early Neolithic communities penetrated in southwestern Transylvania and were established in the Mureș Valley where they found suitable territories for domestic animal herds and probably plant cultivation. The present study tries to answer questi...

Although Europe was not a primary centre of cattle domestication, its expansion from the Middle East and subsequent development created a complex pattern of cattle breed diversity. Many isolated populations of local historical breeds still carry the...

Cultural and physical landscapes can be regarded as a result of the interaction among humans, nonhumans and a vast array of ecological factors. Nonhuman primates are our closest relatives and play a role in many cultural manifestations of mankind. Th...

Halmyris (Murighiol, Tulcea County, Romania) is one of the most important Roman settlements located in the inferior sector of the Danube Delta, in the easternmost part of Scythia province during the Late Antiquity. Halmyris was the most easterly fort...

The reconstruction of past life based on archaeozoology is a challenging domain that offers a range of valuable details concerning former human and animal populations. Additionally, the ancient era is a source of information for human and veterinary...

The wild boar, Sus scrofa, is one of the most successful large mammals in terms of geographic distribution. Along with its domestic descendant, the pig, they are extremely important animals for conservation, economy, human sustenance, and well-being....

In the past, executioners played an important role in the legal system. Besides sentence executions, they also worked as dogcatchers (i.e., eliminating stray animals or cadavers of dead animals from towns), and were responsible for sanitary condition...

The following article concerns the functional use of horse bones in the early Middle Ages (mainly in the period from the mid of the 10th to the 12th/13th century). The authors try to explain how such remains were used and how common it was. It is als...

The Cinta senese is a pig breed, highly esteemed for its meat and derived products, characterized by a black coat with a typical white “belt” and documented by scant iconography, since the 13th–14th century in Italy. A piece of pott...

The Lower Danube region represents a long-standing zone of interaction between indigenous communities, mobile pastoral populations, and Mediterranean colonial networks. During the Late Iron Age, such contexts have frequently been interpreted through...