Alicja Lasota-Moskalewska
On recent trends in archaeozoology
I will begin in the traditional way, with definitions: archaeozoology is an interdisciplinary field, linking elements of zoology with archaeology. Archaeology collects the material for research, dates it, determines its cultural provenance and then hands it over to the archaeozoologist for analysis and interpretations. It is at this point that zoology steps in, identifying animal remains, determining the age, sex and morphological type of the animal, before interpreting the results and drawing conclusions about the domestication of livestock, the economy and human attitudes to animals at a given place and time. With these results, archaeologists compile a picture of the economic situation of the culture and define the civilisational level of the people. Archaeozoology also researches the remains of animals linked to worship of ancestors or gods. These are animal sacrifices, very widespread from the Neolithic to the early Christian era. The third area are figural representations of animals found on rocks and objects of everyday usage.
For some time archaeologists have also been writing about archaeozoology, often without any training in the natural sciences. These researchers want to promote their own area of research within the framework of the collective term, archaeozoology. In Western Europe this trend is so widespread, that the way in which the specialisation was formed has apparently been forgotten. A student of mine went for three-day course to Sheffield, leaving Cracow as an archaeozoologist and returning as a zooarchaeologist. The following facts must be taken into account in connection with this name change: 1/ the foundations of archaeozoology were laid by zoologists (anatomists and palaeontologists), 2/ the name is historically justified, since it was first used at the time that the whole specialisation first took shape. An International Congress of Anatomists at which I was present was held in Budapest in April 1971, and passed a resolution that archaeozoology was to be separated from anatomy and would henceforth use the name which reflected its real interests, and by which it was already known. The specialisation has thus been in existence for 50 years, and although at least half of those of us who were present at that meeting have passed away, archaeozoology is still booming.
Research into animal remains found during archaeological excavations began in earnest in the first half of the twentieth century, although there had been some earlier sporadic activity in the field. Isolated examples of research of this kind began because archaeologists were interested, for example, in the kind of animals that had lived in a particular cave – whether they were only local or whether there were also incomers. In this early research, the main role was played by palaeozoology. In the first half of the twentieth century, Polish archaeozoology was well-served by Prof. Edward Lubicz-Niezabitowski. He was a medical doctor, a versatile natural scientist, a collector, and an amateur mammalogist, osteologist, zoogeographer, entomologist and ichthyologist. In the field of medicine, he was famed for carrying out successful operations in peasant cottages and not operating theatres. W palaeontology he was famous for his expert analysis of the remains of a mammoth and woolly rhinoceros found at Starunia. His doctoral thesis is especially interesting, consisting of a study of insects that lived on human corpses, the sequence in which they appeared and their stage of development making it possible to establish the date of death. Forensic science still makes use of his findings. The study closest to our present subject is his 1938 publication on the animal remains from Biskupin. This study, apart from its major scientific significance, is also important because archaeologists became interested in the results of archaeozoological research.
In the 1950s, an interest was taken throughout Europe in the position of domesticated animals in various cultures, in various periods and in different areas, as well as in the origins of these animals. At this stage, we only knew what Charles Darwin had written in 1868, when he had also formulated an accurate definition of domestication. He believed that a fundamental role was played by morphological characteristics formed through natural selection, with some part also played by an unconscious selection carried out by man. In the second half of the twentieth century the most eminent archaeozoologist was a Hungarian, Sandor Bökönyi, who conducted research into Neolithic settlement in South-West Asia, and also animal remains from the Roman town of Tcá-Gorsium. He published the first archaeozoological monograph, History of Domestic Mammals in Central and Eastern Europe (1974). Sandor Bökönyi wrote not only about animals, but also about the people who in the late Palaeolithic and early Neolithic began animal husbandry and settlement. He believed that domestication was undertaken by peoples who practiced specialised hunting. This specialisation consisted in hunting animals of only one species, for example, horses. He claimed that among these peoples a certain attachment and feeling of ownership developed towards the animals of the hunted species, and this was followed by domestication. However, the facts contradicted this theory, for gazelles and onager were targets for single-species hunting in the Near East, and both species remained undomesticated. Recently, ever more frequently a theory formulated by the German researcher Johann Richard Mucke in 1898, is accepted. Mucke believed that people who proved ineffective in hunting were forced to undertake domestication They had lived by gathering and this led to frequent periods of famine. They therefore tamed animals to have at hand a constant source of food.
The first book describing the position and origin of domesticated animals was published in 1963 by Frederic Everard Zeuner. The author was interested only in animals, and did not deal with the humans who brought about domestication. In 1968 a Polish translation was published of Sergei Nikolaevich
Bogolubsky’s book, The Origin and Transformation of Domestic Animals. This book is excellent, with a great deal of information about the domestication of even exotic animals and also dealing with the humans involved in the process.
Joachim Boessneck explored archaeozoology in Africa. In 1988 he published a book on animals in Ancient Egypt. This book is particularly valuable because it details the author’s own research and is therefore true archaeozoology in both theory and practice. Boessneck’s second area of research was analysis of Neolithic bone remains in Thessaly in Greece, dated to 6500- 6300 BC. This research suggests that the domesticated animals reached Greece from the Near East, by a difficult route across the Aegean Sea, which was possible thanks to the large number of islands. In the period of settlement on the islands, these animals reverted to the wild, and to the present day there are wild goats there whose wild features have been somewhat distorted by the earlier domestication.
Helmut Epstein also worked on the domestication of animals in Africa and in 1971 published a book on the subject, The origin of the domestic animals of Africa. In 1979-1999 Juliet Clutton-Brock published three books, of which one is of exceptional interest because it dealt with horses and donkeys – animals which had appeared more rarely in the literature than other animals, as there were fewer of their remains.
Books that introduced new research methods are of particular importance. The pioneer in this field Vieniamin Tsalkin, who as early as 1960 was the first to produce indices that made it possible to calculate the body height of an animal on the basis of the length of its limbs. Studies by Angela von den Driesch, who worked with Joachim Boessneck, were of major significance. She presented the dimensions of all the bones, introduced a unified nomenclature and abbreviations, and this model functions throughout the world to the present day. In 1997, Achilles Gautier wrote an important article on the Latin names of domesticated animals, stressing that the basis should always be the systematic name of the species, with added information about domestication: “f. domestica”.
In Poland in the same period, four centres of veterinary medicine developed which worked on the identification of animal remains from archaeological sites. The most important was that in Poznań, directed by Prof. Marian Sobociński. His greatest achievement was founding a separate journal entitled Archeozoologia, the subject matter of which had earlier formed part of the Roczniki Akademii Rolniczej w Poznaniu [Annals of the Academy of Agriculture in Poznań]. Archeozoologia appeared for several years and published material studies by the Prof. and his assistants: Daniel Makowiecki (now a Prof. at the University of Toruń), Szymon Godynicki and Zdzisława Schramm. Daniel Makowiecki was later to publish in 2003 an excellent book, Historia ryb i rybołówstwa w holocenie na Niżu Polskim w świetle badań archeozoologicznych [The History of Fish and Fishing in the Holocene in the Polish Lowlands in the light of archaeozoological research]. This is the only book on the history of fish that has appeared in Poland, and, as far as I know anywhere in the world. Zdzisława Schramm was to describe the subtle differences between the bones of goats and those of sheep.
Another centre, directed by Prof. Piotr Wyrost, was in Wrocław. Among his many studies, we must mention his work on types of Early Iron Age and early Mediaeval dogs in Eastern Europe. This is important both because studies of dogs are rare, and also because of the methodology he employed, which made possible determination of the morphological type of the dog. Dr Teresa Radek worked here with Prof. Wyrost on the identification of animal skins from excavations. Prof. Aleksandra Waluszewska-Bubień identified bird bones, which was a rare specialisation in those days.
Szczecin housed the third centre, directed by Prof. Marian Kubasiewicz, who together with his assistants carried out material studies without any particular specialisation, although one of the group, Dr Stanisław Nogalski, was primarily interested in bird remains.
The fourth centre was in Warsaw, founded by Prof. Kazimierz Krysiak and his associates, among whom the most committed were Dr Stanisław Serwatka, Prof. Krzysztof Świeżyński, and Prof. Henryk Kobryń. This team carried out studies of animal remains from large archaeological sites, for example Wiślica. Prof. Henryk Kobryń wrote his higher doctoral thesis on the evolution of horses in Polish territories, and also worked with me on problem-based studies published in Acta Theriologica, which ensured international circulation.
Apart from the veterinary centres, the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Science in Kraków also took up archaeozoology. Prof. Zygmunt Bocheński studied birds, and in 2000 edited and published a book to which I contributed entitled Podstawy Archeozoologii. Ptaki [The Basis of Archaeology. Birds]. Dr Piotr Wojtal dealt with mammals, with particular reference to Pleistocene mammals, and in 2007 published an important book, Zooarchaeological studies of the Late Pleistocene sites in Poland.
In the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw, in 1982 Prof. Teresa Węgrzynowicz published Szczątki zwierzęce jako wyraz wierzeń w czasach ciałopalenia zwłok [Animal Remains as a Reflection of Beliefs in the Period of Cremations]. This the only synthetic study of this difficult problem, and is additionally written by an archaeologist which means that it provides a full cultural commentary.
Dr Renata Abłamowicz works in Katowice, in the Silesian Museum, and was co-author with Prof. Henryk Kubiak of a book on animal remains in Lusatian-culture cremation burial sites in the basins of the Oder and Vistula rivers (1999). Cremation burial sites represent the greatest challenge to archaeozoology. Even the identification of bones is practically impossible, and it is still necessary to consider their repositioning and evaluate the role played by sacrifice. The same author (Dr Abłamowicz) co-authored another book with Prof. Daniel Makowiecki; this was a very successful and comprehensible study for the general reader of the history of animal domestication (2019).
In 2005 a Poznań archaeologist published Placing Animals in the Neolithic: Social Zooarchaeology of Prehistoric Farming Communities. The interpretation of results in this book is misleading because it is based on serious errors that result from lack of familiarity with animal anatomy – errors of which the author is aware, because I wrote about them in my review of the book.
Prof. Marta Osypińska, a former student and doctoral student of mine from the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Science, is currently working on archaeozoology in Poznań. Her main archaeozoological research has been conducted in Sudan. She published a book entitled Krowie królestwa. Zwierzęta w historii doliny środkowego Nilu [The Bovine Kingdoms. Animals in the History of the Middle Nile Basin] (2018).
I myself entered archaeozoology in 1968, working first in the State Archaeological Museum and State Studios for Conservation of Cultural Property.
In 1990 I began to work in the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw. I first published many studies of materials and later began to analyse wider problems in books and articles. Among my books, the most important are two academic textbooks on archaeozoology for students and researchers (1997, 2008). My book Zwierzęta udomowione w dziejach ludzkości [The domestication of animals in human history] (2005) is a summing-up of my research into the origin and domestication of mammals, birds and invertebrates. Another study, which I co-authored with Muhiddin Hudjanazarov, Petroglyphs of mammals in the Sarmišsaj Gorg, Uzbec Republic (2000) deals with identifying figural representations, and contains a major section describing build characteristics that make species identification possible. I am also the co-author of The Basis of the Archaeozoology, Birds (2000) and a book about Neolithic cemetery at Złota Sandomierska (1976).
The setting up of a Department of Environmental Archaeology in the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw was a very important moment because it marked the beginning in Poland of the teaching of Archaeozoology on degree programmes and meant that the discipline was recognised as an academic subject. I drew up the syllabuses covering the problems to be taught and the subjects for M.A. dissertations, of which to date about 130 have been written in the department. Four of my students went on to complete doctorates, and one of them, Joanna Piątkowska-Małecka, has also completed a higher doctorate on the basis of a book entitled, Łowiectwo ssaków na ziemiach polskich od neolitu do okresu wędrówek ludów [Hunting for Mammals in Polish territories from the Neolithic to the period of the Great Migrations] (2013). This is a unique study, despite the fact that for centuries hunting was the basic method by which man obtained meat. Dr Anna Gręzak wrote her doctoral dissertation about animal economy in mediaeval Kołobrzeg. Both of these scholars teach at the Faculty of Archaeology and the Faculty of Artes Liberales of the University of Warsaw. Dr Urszula Iwaszczuk is currently working on animal remains that she excavated in Sudan.
The publications that I have mentioned so far as studies of materials are the products of a certain type of archaeozoology, that is, morphological archaeozoology, based on analysis of the build characteristics of the bones, which when transferred to the characteristics of the animal, offer the possibility of evaluation of size, morphological type, sex and age. In this research the frequency of animal remains of particular species is taken into account in each archaeological unit – that is, in each layer, each excavation, each site or each grave. The frequency of anatomical parts is also calculated, noting whether the particular group is uniform or not, or whether two groups can be distinguished. There is also an assessment of whether all parts of the skeleton are represented in the material and whether the frequency of their appearance is in accord with the structure of the skeleton.
Over the last two decades, genetics has been added to the tools used in archaeozoological research. As a new discipline working with methods as yet unknown in archaeology, it has made a great impression and has overtaken morphological archaeozoology. I have a great respect for genetics in research, but not when generalisations are made on the basis of only a few results that exhibit a relationship, for example the conclusion that the whole process of animal domestication took place in the Near East. This contradicts the well-documented research results of archaeozoology to date, that domestication took place in different periods of time in different territories, if only there were wild animals that could survive this difficult process. Naturally, there also had to be human beings, who had advanced to the cultural level when domestication could be undertaken. Dogs were domesticated in areas where there were wolves, pigs where there were wild boar, and cattle where there were aurochs. In Polish territories, the aurochs was also domesticated, evidence of which exists in intermediate forms between the wild aurochs and domestic cattle (Lasota-Moskalewska A., Kobryń H., 1989). An indication of the territories where the domestication of a particular species took place can be found in the migration pathways of animals and the cultural level of the peoples inhabiting a given area. Animal domestication was a major turning point in the lives of the people who undertook the process. These were people who had usually entered a settled lifestyle, had begun to cultivate the land and clear the surrounding forest because they needed more land for agriculture, and they began to construct shelters or dugouts. We can easily identify territories where the wild forms of animals were found and domestication was not undertaken because instead of intermediate forms we find a hiatus in the plotted sequence of bone size. A hiatus of this kind was described for cattle by Joachim Boessneck (1962) at the Neolithic site at Argissa Magula in Greece, dated to 6500- 6300 BC. There was a similar situation in Neolithic Switzerland (l. Rutimeyer, 1862) and also in the Near East at Tepe Sabz (K. V. Flannery, 1969). The opposite situation, that is morphological continuity between wild and domesticated forms, was described in the British Isles (P. Jewell 1960), at Hungarian sites (S. Bökönyi, 1974), and at Polish sites (A. Lasota-Moskalewska, 1976; A. Lasota- Moskalewska, H. Kobryń 1989). Observation of the beginnings of domestication at Nemrik (Iraq) is also interesting, for it is here that the earliest evidence to date of the domestication of cattle has been found. In the phase dated to 7150- 7050 BC, I found only 1% of bones of intermediate form between the aurochs and domestic cattle; and in the phase dated to 7050-6500 BC there was already 10.7% (A. Lasota- Moskalewska, 1994). Because this is very important, I will repeat a definition of intermediate forms. These are forms in which the morphological picture reveals a mixture of the characteristics of wild and domesticated animals, which in bone dimensions means those of intermediate size. Where intermediate forms exist and a wild ancestor is also present, then local domestication has to be considered as a serious possibility. Prof. Sobociński’s findings at the late Mesolithic site at Dąbki in Darłowo district (1984, 1986) are fascinating. The people here domesticated as many as three species, for their wild forms were also found at the site. These were cattle, pigs and dogs.
Local domestication was of great significance in the cultural development of human groups, and also indicates that an inflow of foreign cultures was not involved. The geneticists’ suggestion that all European animals were domesticated in the Near East, and that all of Europe took over pre-domesticated forms, would mean that over a vast area the population had no independence or ability to evolve culturally, not to mention the fact that it falsifies what actually happened. It is true that after a certain time, migrating populations arrived with animals that had earlier been domesticated, such as cattle, or sheep and goats which had admittedly been domesticated only in the Near East. In Polish territory there were mixed situations, like for example that after the arrival of the people of the Linear Pottery culture: there were large native cattle, and much smaller incoming cattle that had been domesticated three thousand years earlier. The people of the Linear Pottery culture also brought to Europe sheep and goats that had been domesticated in South East Asia, a conclusion that is based on the fact that it was only there that the wild forms were to be found. Pigs were domesticated locally, since this is a species that is not suitable for migration. This situation lasted for a relatively long time, since it can be observed on sites of the Funnelbeaker culture and later in the period of the Globular Amphora culture (at Złota Sandomierska and at Wojciechowice: my own research).
The fundamental question of identifying the ancestor of domesticated animals is not complicated. Usually a wild form is still in existence (e.g. sheep, goats, pigs, dogs) and if not the bones of the ancestors of the domesticated animal are to be found in archaeozoological material (e.g. the aurochs, the tarpan). There is considerable morphological similarity between the wild and domesticated forms, and the differences lie in the characteristics that we term domestication characteristics, that is, the size of bones and proportions in the structure of both the bones and individual parts of the anatomy. The length characteristics of long bones changed more than those of width, the width of the distal end changed more than that of the proximal end; there were major changes in the skull. However, among non-archaeologists, there is a temptation to treat modern wild forms as a separate species from the domesticated form. The Bactrian camel living at the moment in Asia is considered to be a separate species and not the ancestor of the domesticated camel. The characteristics that differentiate these two species have even been recorded, although in fact these differentiating characteristics are the effects of domestication. Nor has anyone been concerned about the fact that you cannot find any bones of the wild ancestor of the Bactrian camel. You might as well say that the domestic pig and the wild boar are two separate species.
Another important problem that has been solved on the basis of morphological research is that of the history of domesticated animals and the routes that they followed in migrations with early pastoralists. It proved possible on the basis of a large number of material studies to trace the routes taken by domesticated goats in Asia Minor. These goats were not very large, measuring 53-70 cm in height at the withers. In the Neolithic, they appeared in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and in Greece, Hungary, Czechia, Germany and Poland (A. Lasota-Moskalewska et al. 1991). They played a greater economic role in dry and hilly terrain, while in Poland they were of only minor importance. In the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, in the Dimini culture in Greece, another form of goat appeared which has been identified by morphological methods. This was larger than the other, 71 to 85 cm in height at the withers, and with bigger horns. This form spread throughout Europe, apart from the Scandinavian and Baltic countries. It appears to have followed the same routes as the expanding Roman Empire. For example in Panonia, the Roman province in the territory of Hungary, these goats were very numerous (S. Bökönyi, 1984). And so we see that the morphological type of domesticated animals is clearly linked with human cultures and political history.
The history of sheep has been examined in a similar way. They were domesticated in places where their wild ancestor occurs, or in other words in South West Asia, and then began their migration to Europe. They appeared first in Thessaly during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and in the 5th millennium B.C. spread throughout Europe. They were not large animals, with a height at the withers of 49- 67 cm. From the late Neolithic in Central Europe a morphologically differentiated sheep appeared. It was much larger, measuring 70- 80 cm at the withers, and had a powerful skeleton (A. Lasota- Moskalewska et al. 1998). The migration route of this sheep is fascinating. Its earliest remains were found at Mesolithic sites in Southern France dated to 8000-7300 BP (D. S. Geddes, 1985) and also at pre-Neolithic sites in the western Alps (L. Chaix, 1991). I proposed the theory that the second of these forms developed from a cross between the first domesticated form and the urial, taking place for example in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in South West Asia. The morphology suggests that this sheep migrated along two routes. One was to the North East in the direction of the Black Sea and reaching to the Dniester; the second was to the South West, through Anatolia, towards the Northern coast of Africa, and then to the Iberian peninsula and from there to the South Western Alps. This sheep was often referred to by authors reporting on Neolithic European sites because it exhibited certain distinctive features. In the Chalcolithic, the large sheep migrated Eastwards, appearing in German territories, and later in Poland. Archaeozoologists called the small sheep ‘peat sheep’ from the peatland sites where they were found in Switzerland, and the large sheep ‘copper sheep’ from the late Neolithic, Copper Age or Chalcolithic. First there were reports that various forms of sheep were to be found on the sites examined, and it was only when hundreds of sites had been researched that it was possible to establish the routes of the migrations and reconstruct the interconnected histories of the animals and humans.
Morphology also has considerable achievements in other areas of archaeozoological research. For example research into the anatomical distribution of animal remains makes it possible to draw conclusions about tolls and taxes paid in meat, like the ‘shoulder’ in mediaeval Ciechanów. It is also possible to identify nomads, who preferred to eat meat from the hind quarters, roasting it over a camp fire. The poor can also be identified through their breaking up of the animal’s head, for as well as the masticator muscle, the nostrils, brain and tongue could be eaten. In this case, there are far more skull bones than should result from the position of the skull in the skeleton.
The simplified contemporary approach to archaeozoology consists in counting only specified and easily recognisable anatomical parts, for example, the epiphysis of long bones. If identification of this kind is practised, archaeozoology becomes very simple, for to all apparent purposes specialised knowledge is unnecessary to identify bones – anyone can recognise an epiphysis. In this kind of approach to animal remains, some species disappear entirely, because they did not leave behind recognisable epiphyses. And the possibility of examining anatomical distribution, which is so important from a cultural standpoint, also disappears.
The basic principle of arachaeozoological research should be to pick up and examine every bone fragment. Pieces of vertebrae, which are often neglected, can conceal exceptional secrets. For example, bifurcated processus spinosus of thoracic vertebrae appear only in zebu cattle. And yet in remains from 14th-16th-century Chełm I found vertebrae of exactly this kind, which indicates that there were zebu cattle in Chełm. This must reflect extraordinary trading contacts with the Indian sub-continent, or with Africa, where there were crosses between zebu and African cattle.
If research is only concentrated on epiphyses, no attention at all is paid to the bone debris, where not even half an epiphysis is to be found. It is treated as the effect of destruction and it is often not even mentioned in reports from sites. But this debris provides evidence that human beings suffered from calcium and phosphorous deficiency. This was reflected in crooked legs and the fact that they had broken bones, and in addition they had an unconquerable craving for calcium. This craving can be so strong that a human being automatically eats everything containing calcium. During the second world war, children gnawed holes in walls – something that I have experienced myself. Milk can satisfy the craving for calcium but not in periods when there were no domesticated cattle (Palaeolithic, Mesolithic) or when they were newly domesticated (the first half of the Neolithic). In these periods, the craving for calcium directed people towards bones and mollusc shells. They ground them on stones and ate the powder, throwing away the small pieces that remained. Whole piles of debris often collected from this activity, and almost no researchers take an interest in it, regarding it as rubbish. Heaps of this kind have been found outside the Maszycka Cave (Palaeolithic), at Miłuki in the Luta district, and at Łajty (Mesolithic), at Kamień Łukawski and Sandomierz (Neolithic) (A. Lasota- Moskalewska et al.). Louis Chaix has also written about bones of this kind on the basis of his work at sites in France and Switzerland. From the mid-Neolithic the pattern disappears, which clearly shows us the period when domesticated cows began to give milk.
My advice to young archaeozoologists is above all that they should not avoid difficult questions and methods and should not make generalisations on the basis of a small number of sites. Every site that is properly excavated and researched has a value of its own.