Balogh Csilla – P. Fischl Klára: Felgyő, Ürmös-tanya. A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Monumenta Archeologica 1. (Szeged, 2010)

The Bronze Age animal remains from Felgyő

Bronzkori állatcsontleletek Felgyöről 183 cent of the animal bones came to light from two burials (Graves 144 and 145; Table 1). The original context of the stray finds is uncertain: they could equally well have been recovered from the settlement or from various burials. The animal bone sample from the Bronze Age site is predominantly made up of domestic species (76.9 per cent), with a smaller proportion comprising fishes (17.2 per cent) and two mussel shells. Wild species are entirely lacking. The domestic animals are represented by five species: cattle (Bos taurus L.), sheep (Ovis aries L.), pig (Sus domestica Erxl.), horse (Equus caballus L.) and domestic goose (Anser domestica L.). The latter probably date from a later period and somehow became mixed up with the Bronze Age finds. The sample was dominated by cattle (83 pieces, 61.9 per cent). The proportion of sheep (10 pieces, 7.5 per cent) and pig (2 pieces, 1.5 per cent) was insignificant, represented by a few bones only. The horse remains (6 pieces, 4.5 per cent) were not recovered from graves. Grave 144 yielded cattle only, Grave 145 contained cattle and sheep, while Grave 145 had cattle, sheep and pig (Table 1). The anatomical distribution is shown in Table 2. The proportion of meaty and meatless bones was roughly the same for cattle. Meatless bones were entirely lacking in the case of sheep; the bones came from the meat-rich body regions and the meaty limbs. The pig bones too came from meaty parts cooked as food. The horse bones were not part of the household refuse: the skull fragments and the limb bones were meatless bones (Table 3). Even though the number of cattle bones was relatively low, they provide an adequate body of data for the zoological characterisation of this species. The skull and vertebrae from Grave 144 came from one individual. It seems likely that other parts of the animal had also been deposited in the grave, but were subsequently lost. A similar phenomenon was observed at Soroksár: the skull and the vertebrae were severed from the animal and the front and hind limbs were also removed from the body (VÖRÖS 2002, 251). The animal was probably sacrificed. The animal was full-grown, although the articular processes of the vertebrae had not become ossified; it seems that the creature was butchered before it turned seven. The right horn-core was well preserved: it is large, curving forward and upward. The round, thin-walled horn-core has a greatest diameter of 81.3 mm, a smallest diameter of 61.8 mm, a basal diameter of 226 mm and a length of 102.8 mm. The horn-core's dimensions and traits suggest that it came from an ox (Fig. 1. 1). Comparably large horn-cores are very rare: similar pieces are known from Dunaújváros, Füzesabony and Tiszaluc-Dankadomb (BÖKÖNYI 1974,439^140). Found in addition to the skull, was the left mandible, whose lower part had been severed with a longitudinal blow. The cattle bones from Grave 145 came from two different indiv iduals (cp. Table 4). Judging from the ossification of the bones, one was a fully grown creature over 7 years old, the other was younger than 3 years. The stray cattle bones came from at least five different individuals. The eruption of the teeth and the epiphyseal ossification indicated that one was about 1 year old, one was younger than 2 years and three were older than 4 years. A withers height of 121.8 cm could be calculated from an intact, measurable radius using Matolcsy's method (MATOLCSY 1970), corresponding to a medium-sized animal. Cattle of similar size have been reported from several other Bronze Age sites (BÖKÖNYI 1958, 31; BÖKÖNYI 1984, 146; VÖRÖS 1980, 23; VÖRÖS 1995, 153; VÖRÖS 2002, 251). The stray finds included several skull fragments and mandibles. The corpus of the mandible curves forward and upward, and the length of the measurable MI _3 in one mandible was 82.4 mm. The height of the corpus after the M

3 was 70.6 mm. The cattle bones came from at least eight individuals, yielding an estimated 2000 kg of meat. The few sheep bones had belonged to at least three individuals. The meat yield of the animals was ca. 75 kg. With the exception of a skull fragment, the bones represented meaty bones. The bones all came from fully grown individuals. The pig bones belonged to a juvenile individual, while the horse bones came from a young 1.5 years old and an adult, fully grown individual. The stray finds included the left side fragment of a viscerocranium with the P

4 and the M' 2 in the maxilla. The M

1 is strongly worn (Fig 1. 2). The teeth are small, their dimensions are as follows: P

4: 23.5:27.7 mm, M : 20.2:26.4 mm, M

2: 21.6:24.9 mm. Comparable teeth have been found at Szigetszentmiklós (VÖRÖS 1992, 278), where a tibia distalis and a 3rd phalanx were also recovered. Recovered from Pit a in Trench I were the articulate, intact bones of a left metacarpal. The epiphyseal ossification on the metacarpal could be clearly noted, as could the line of ossification on the distal epiphysis. The animal was about 1.2-1.3 years old. The withers height estimated from the metacarpal using Vitt's method (VITT 1952) was 136 cm, corresponding to a low body height. All three limb bones came from gracile, light-boned individuals. The horse bones did not include the remains of a more robust species with wider epiphyses and large phalanges known from the period's other sites, a horse species appearing during the Early Bronze Age and disappearing after the decline of the Nagyrév culture (VÖRÖS 1988, 21). While horse meat was consumed on a large scale on some sites, there is no evidence for this practice at Felgyő because the horse bones came from the animal's meatless parts (cp. Table 4). A relatively high number of fish remains came to light. Three species could be identified: common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.), pike (Esox lucius L.) and catfish (Silurus glanis L.). The context of most fish remains was not recorded and these were therefore assigned to the stray finds with the exception of four pike bones recovered from Pit a in Trench I. Fishing was an important source of food during the Bronze Age and these are the species found most often on the period's sites (BÖKÖNYI 1982, 120). Two mussel shells were found in Grave 145. One, a right valve, probably comes from swollen river mussel (Unio tumidus L.; L. 53 mm, W. 28.3 mm), the left valve from a painter's mussel (Unio pictorum L.; L. 41.9 mm, W. 21.9 mm). A 9.2 mm large section was cut out at the distal end (Fig. 1. 3). While the low number of animal bones hardly represents the entire spectrum of the fauna of the Bronze Age settlement or the animal sacrifices performed as part of the funerary ritual or the food offerings deposited in the grave, they nonetheless offer a broad picture of the major domestic species, which harmonises with the currently known archaeozoological record of the Bronze Age. Körösi Andrea Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Budapest, XIV. Városliget, H-1367 Budapest 5, Pf. 129 E-mail: korosi@mmgm.hu