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Production de garum et salsamenta bien connue dans le monde mediterraneen et atlantique. Largement exportee au Ier s. Mais de plus en plus on decouvre un nombre important de varietes de sauces de poissons divers dans les provinces du N (Belgique, Pays Bas) ou en Mer Rouge. Peut-on parler d’artisanat ? Ou ces salaisons se font-elles a une echelle plus industrielle ? Le contenant est inconnu : caisse en bois ou amphore recyclee. Mais la consommation peut tres bien n’etre que locale au IIe-IIIe s jusqu’a une resurgence du commerce de salaisons au Bas Empire

The fish remains are described that were found at the bottom of an Early Roman ceramic jar from Aila Aqaba, Jordan. The bones, representing the gill apparatuses of at least 33 medium-sized tunas (Auxis; Scombridae) and a single individual of a lizardfish (Trachinocephalus myops; Synodontidae), are believed to correspond to haimation. This highly prized fish sauce, documented previously only from ancient textual evidence, was typically made from the gills and the entrails of tunnids to which salt was added. The sauce was not imported from the Mediterranean or the Black Sea, but made from local Red Sea fish as shown by the zoogeographical distribution of the lizardfish that is considered as stomach content of the tunas. Because the fish bones were found in a locally produced jar and because the calculated volume of the haimation that the bones represent corresponds more or less to the volume of the jar, it is concluded that this high-quality garum was produced in this container at Aila itself.

This paper explores the potential of stable isotope analysis to identify the approximate region of catch of cod by analysing bones from medieval settlements in northern and western Europe. It measures the δ 13 C and δ 15 N values of cod bone collagen from medieval control samples collected from sites around Arctic Norway, the North Sea, the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea. These data were considered likely to differ by region due to, for example, variation in the length of the food chain, water temperature and salinity. We find that geographical structuring is indeed evident, making it possible to identify bones from cod caught in distant waters. These results provide a new methodology for studying the growth of long-range trade in dried cod and the related expansion of fishing effort—important aspects of the development of commercialisation in medieval Europe. As a first test of the method, we analyse three collections of cod bones tentatively interpreted as imported dried fish based on a priori zooarchaeological criteria. The results tentatively suggest that cod were being transported or traded over very long distances since the end of the first millennium AD.

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. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Burned greasy deposits were found inside shells of the large Nile bivalve Chambardia rubens, excavated in an eight- to tenth- century AD church of the Coptic monastery of Bawit, Egypt, and supposedly used as oil lamps. The residues were subjected to a combination of chromatographic residue analysis techniques. The rather high concentrations of unsaturated fatty acids, as analysed by gas chromatography (GC) in the methylated extract, suggest the presence of a vegetal oil. Analysis of the stable carbon isotopes (delta C-13 values) of the methyl esters also favoured plants over animals as the lipid source. In the search for biomarkers by GC coupled to mass spectrometry on a silylated extract, a range of diacids together with high concentrations of 13,14-dihydroxydocosanoate and 11,12-dihydroxyeicosanoate were found. These compounds are oxidation products of erucic acid and gondoic acid, which are abundantly present in seeds of Brassicaceae plants. Liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry analysis showed low concentrations of unaltered triglycerides, but revealed sizeable amounts of triglycerides with at least one dihydroxylated acyl chain. The unusual preservation of dihydroxylated triglycerides and alpha,omega-dicarboxylic acids can be related to the dry preservation conditions. Analysis of the stereoisomers of the dihydroxylated fatty acids allows one to determine whether oxidation took place during burning of the fuel or afterwards. The results prove that the oil of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) or radish (Raphanus sativus L.) was used as illuminant in early Islamic Egypt, and that not only ceramic lamps but also mollusk shells were used as fuel containers. ispartof: Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry vol:390 issue:2 pages:783-793 ispartof: location:Germany status: published

In this paper, we investigate the potential use of oxygen and strontium isotope ratios (delta O-18(p) and Sr-87/Sr-86) measured in archaeological fish enamel as provenance indicators. delta O-18(p) and Sr-87/Sr-86 were measured in a suite of archaeological carp remains recovered from the Anatolian townsite of Sagalassos dated to the Early Byzantine period (AD 450-650) 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). delta O-18(p) values mostly excluded a riverine origin. Sr-87/Sr-86 ratios of one fish overlapped with the Sr-87/Sr-16 signatures of two lakes in the Anatolian region, and at least one lake (Golcuk) could be removed as a candidate owing to a very distinctive Sr-87/Sr-86 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 (87)sr/Sr-86 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 Sr-87/Sr-86 ratio within a lake, the contribution of dietary strontium to the Sr-87/Sr-86 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. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ispartof: Journal of Archaeological Science vol:34 issue:8 pages:1226-1239 status: published

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 occupatio n 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.

The town of Sagalassos, located in south-western Turkey, was an important regional centre from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity. Since the 1990s, the site has been the subject of systematic interdisciplinary research focusing on industrial, commercial, and residential areas of the town. The aim of this paper is to present the results of the excavations of two residential complexes in the town, including a palatial mansion to the north of the Roman Baths and a late antique house/shop encroaching upon the east portico of the lower agora. These housing complexes provide evidence for the living conditions of both the upper and middle classes in Late Antiquity.

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 cha...

This paper discusses the bird remains found in the Roman levels of the military fort of ‘Abu Sha’ ar and of the ancient harbour of Berenike. Food procurement was essentially based on wild resources at ‘Abu Sha’ ar and this is also reflected in the bird remains. Only 28 per cent of the bird bones at the low status site of ‘Abu Sha’ ar are from domestic fowl, whereas at the commercially important town of Berenike 92 per cent were. Medullary bone was present in 66 per cent of the 161 chicken remains at Berenike. The occurrence and formation of medullary bone in modern domestic fowl is discussed and possibilites from its study in the chicken remains from Berenike are presented.

Recent investigations of three archaeological sites in the Nigerian part of the Chad Basin during the Holocene reveal key stages in the cultural development and environmental history of that region. At Dufuna, a dugout boat was dated to around 6000 BC, making it the oldest known boat in Africa and one of the oldest in the world. Boats may thus have contributed to the mobility of the population of the southern edge of the Sahara 8000 years ago and, thereby, to the cultural homogeneity of this period. The pottery site at Konduga is around a thousand years younger than Dufuna but still belongs to the time of Mega-Chad. The site is on the Bama Ridge, an old shoreline. Its pottery, decorated in the Saharan tradition, belongs to the earliest ceramic phase of the West African Later Stone Age, long before the beginnings of food production. Although this site was probably settled by pioneers advancing into a largely flooded landscape along the slightly raised shoreline, the human occupation of the area previously covered by Mega-Chad began along a broad front around 2000 BC. Archaeological and palaeoecological finds from two settlement mounds at Gajiganna are described as case studies for this phase, which predates the well-known site of Daima.

This chapter discusses the possible contribution of historical and archaeozoological data to the establishment of reference conditions. First, the methodology used by fishery biologists to evaluate and monitor water quality is presented in general terms. Then a case study shows the fishery research carried out through time in the Scheldt, a major river basin in Belgium. Lastly, the chapter describes the biological information that is relevant for the compliance with the water framework directive (WFD) and discusses the added value of historical and archaeozoological data from Flanders for an integrated approach to the evaluation of the quality of river basins. Keywords: archaeozoological data; fishery management; Flanders; Scheldt Basin; water framework directive (WFD)

Extensive accumulations of animal remains, in the absence of anthropogenic contextual evidence, tend to be interpreted in strictly palaeobiological terms. The fact that anthropogenic thanatocoenoses may, to a great extent mimic natural ones has so far not been documented in detail. This paper gives an example of a recent man-made accumulation of fish remains, some characteristics of which might lead researchers to incorrect thinking. Should the assemblage be covered by sediment and later excavated, it would probably be misinterpreted as a product of mass mortality of isolated populations in seasonal pools. In particular, the large number of specimens retrieved, the undisturbed articulation of most skeletal elements and the small size of the fishes, together with an almost complete absence of signs of human activity could lead to such a misinterpretation. A palaeontological example of accumulated fish remains, which has very similar characteristics to the present-day one, is also discussed.

The available data are reviewed on ichthyofaunas from prehistoric sites along the Nile in Egypt and Sudanese Nubia. Former fishing practices are reconstructed using information derived from species spectra, reconstructed fish sizes, growth increment analysis and fishing implements. It is demonstrated that fishing was initially practised exclusively on the floodplain and that it was limited to a small number of shallow water taxa during Late Palaeolithic times. From the Epipalaeolithic onwards (ca 10000-8000 bp), fishing was also undertaken in the main Nile whereby the number of exploited species increased. Technological innovations allowing the exploitation of the deeper parts of the main river included nets and fish-hooks as well as improved vessels, permitting the capture of larger species from the open water. It is argued that fish must always have been a staple food because the animals seasonally occurring in large numbers on the floodplain were intensively exploited and because these fish could be easily dried for future consumption. Once the fishing grounds also included the main river, fishing was no longer restricted to the flood season, but could also be carried out when the Nile levels were low. Hence the role offish in the resource scheduling also changed at the transition of Late Palaeolithic to Epipalaeolithic times. ispartof: Journal of African Archaeology vol:2 issue:2 pages:251-269 status: published

A cat skeleton from a Predynastic burial in Egypt that was previously labelled as Felis silvestris is re-identified as Felis chaus. This means that the previous claim needs to be withdrawn that the specimen represents early evidence for taming of Felis silvestris that ultimately led to domestication. However, the statement that the small felid has been held in captivity for several weeks, based on the presence of healed fractures, is still valid.