Folia archeologica 31.

István Vörös: Zoológiai és palaeoökonómiai vizsgálatok a korai neolitikus Körös kultúra archaeozoologiai anyagán

ARCHAEOZOOI.OGIA 47 while the quality of hunting, the preference of certain animals and the technique of hunting had ultimately ethnic, economic and social causes. We know 15 wild mammal species from the settlements of the Körös Culture (Tables 1, 2) :

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9 Perissodactyla

: wild ass — "Asinus hydruntinus (Regalia)" horse — Equus (s. str./sp.) Artiodactyla: aurochs — Bos primigenius Bojanus "wild sheep" — Ovis musimon Schreber red deer — Cervus elaphus Linné roe deer — Capreolus capreolus Linné Eastern-European wild boar — Sus scrofa attila Thomas Ferae: wolf — Canis lupus Linné fox — Vulpes vulpes Linné wild cat — Felis silvestris Brisson Mustelidae sp. ind. cf. Putorius putorius eversmanni (Lesson) badger — Meies meles Linné Rodentia: beaver — Castor fiber Linné Lagomorpha: hare — Lepus europaeus Pallas There are only a few Osteometrie data of wild mammals known from the settlements of the Körös Culture. We can see from these data only the fact that the herbivores lived during the Early Neolithic — like those lived in the Balkan

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0 — were smaller than these animals in the Late Neolithic/Copper Age. We do not know exactly whether this difference originated from the chronodynamic changes in the body size of the species caused by the climate or it would mean that — as during the younger phases of the Neolithic, too — the people of the Körös Culture preferred the hunting of smaller females whose killing was more easy because of their ethology. The complex investigations made on the osteological material of the large herbivores seem to prove the possibility of both hypotheses.

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1 The wild mammals got into the settlements as game were: aurochs, red deer, roe deer, wild boar, horse and wild ass (Fig. 2). The carnivores which often filched the live stock and the refuse of the settlements were the wolf, badger, fox, the Mustelidae, and the wild cat. The vertebral column and proximal parts of the limbs of these animals were found very rarely at the settlements proving their exclusive utilization as furry ani5

9 Vide notes 3-20. 6

0 Bökönyi, S., The vertebrata fauna from Obre Г-II. WMBHL 4/A (1974) 92-.; Id., The vertebrata fauna from Anza. In: Gimbutas, M., Neolithic Macedonia. Mon.Arch.l. (Los Angeles 1976) 338-, 6

1 Vörös, /., A magyarországi ... 65. Table 4.2.2.