Anthropologiai Közlemények 37. (1995)

1995 / 1-2. füzet - Eredeti közlemények - Bökönyi, S.: Problems with using osteological materials of wild animals for comparisons in archaeozoology

Anthrop. Közi. 37; 3-11. (1995) PROBLEMS WITH USING OSTEOLOGICAL MATERIALS OF WILD ANIMALS FOR COMPARISONS IN ARCHAEOZOOLOGY1 S. Bökönyi Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest Abstract: Domestication leads to changes both in the morphology and in size of animals. Osteological differences between domesticates and their ancestors are of great importance in the reconstruction of ancient animal keeping and hunting. In the absence of sufficiently large archaeozoological assemblages and reference collecitons with reliable documentation, however, osteological comparisons between wild animals and their domestic forms must be treated very carefully. This paper is a critical review of morphological distinctions as well as a brief practical summary of osteometric data on the two economically most important animals in the Carpathian Basin, cattle and pig. Keywords: Archaeozoology; Domestication; Wild ancestor; Osteomorphology; Osteometry. Among the changes in the animals caused by domestication the morphological ones are the most important at least from the viewpoint of zoologists who are dealing with early phases of animal husbandry. In fact, the careful analysis of such changes can provide them with information of vital importance concerning the existence or lack of domesticated animals in early prehistoric sites. It is well-known that among the proofs of existing animal husbandry in a given prehistoric site, the anatomical changes in the animals in question are the most important ones (Herre 1963, Bökönyi 1969). First of all, the size decrease and the changes in the form and proportions of the whole body or its certain parts are very useful in this respect. The best way to study these changes is the comparison of the remains of the supposedly domesticated animals to those of their wild forms from the same site. In this way one can directly compare the domesticated and wild populations of the same species from exactly the same geographical environment (Bökönyi 1962). The main advantage of such a comparison is that one can follow the process of domestication without the disturbing effects caused by the differences in the environment and also on the sub-specific level of the species in question. Nevertheless, such comparisons with the local wild form will be possible only in that case if the remains of the wild form occur in a fair quantity in the site. If they don’t, one will have to turn to wild samples of other sites or to recent comparative osteological colletions. The use of contemporaneous comparative material from a site or sites of the same region is a rather fruitful solution. Though, one has to keep in mind that the comparative material has to be really contemporaneous with the original sample (in other terms, it is not enough to use subfossil material in general, it has to be from the same archaeological period) because wild forms also underwent considerable changes in their Holocene history. Let it be enough to refer to experiences with aurochs, wild swine, red deer, etc. 1 In this paper, a theoretical study and a list of relevant, previously unpublished numerical data were merged to commemorate the pioneering work of Sándor Bökönyi in the field of archaeozoology. Aside from this arbitrary combination, however, editing was minimized to the addition of figures, footnotes as well as the paragraphs connecting the morphological discussion and metric data. These were compiled by László Bartosiewicz on the basis of recent work and personal communications by Sándor Bökönyi.

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