Póczy Klára: Forschungen in Aquincum 1969- 2002 (Aquincum Nostrum 2. Budapest, 2003)

6. Die Wirtschaft Aquincums im Spiegel der neuen Funde - 6.3. Animals and Roman lifeways in Aquincum (Alice M. Choyke)

6.3. ANIMALS AND ROMAN LIFEWAYS IN AQUINCUM Introduction Archaeozoology is the study of animal bones from archaeological sites. Although an accepted sub-field of archaeology now, there has not always been such enthusiasm for these 'old bones'. Indeed, while the earliest excavation reports from the Roman Civil Town of Aquincum tantalizingly mention butcher shops in the Civil Town market, no bones were actually studied or even saved from these structures.

1 The first research efforts concerned with faunal analysis as a separate field is generally attributed to two Swiss researchers, Ludwig Rütimeyer

2 and Jan Ulrich Duerst.

3 The first decades of the new century saw a number of limited attempts to use data from animal bones but archaeological excavation and analysis was not yet focused on the sort of economic and subsistence questions to which this kind of find material is more suited. 1 Kuzsinszky, B., Az aquincumi ásatások 1882-1884 és 1889 [Excavations in Aquincum between 1882-1884 and in 1889]. BudRég 2 (1890) 77-160. The erstwhile butcher shop is also touched on in KUZSINSZKY 1934. The only exception is K. Torma, Az aquincumi Amphiteatrum északi fele. (Jelentés az ottani ásatásokról) [The northern half of the Aquincum amphitheater (Report on the excavations there)]. Budapest, 1881, 100-102. 2 Rütimeyer, L., Die Fauna der Pfahlbauten der Schweiz. Neue Denkschr. D. Allg. Schweiz. Ges. D. ges. Natwiss. 19, 1861. Rütimeyer was the first to recognize that there were differences between the bones of domestic animals and the bones of their wild ancestors. 5 Duerst, J. U., Animal remains from the excavations at Anau and the horse of Anau in relation to the races of domestic horses. In: (R. Pumpelly ed.) Explorations in Turkestan 2. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1908, 339-442. Duerst spent three years studying a huge bone assemblage from Anau in Russian Turkestan where he claimed to perceive a reduction in the size and texture of bones during the transition from hunting to domestcation. The years following World War II saw the rise of a few important scholars working in particular on problems of Neolithic domestication and production.

4 In Hungary, Sándor Bökönyi began work in the early 1950's both on questions surrounding the Neolithic development in the Near East and Central Europe as well as on other periods including the first scientific work on the animals of Roman Pannónia (BÖKÖNYI 1974).

5 Despite the huge volume of his opus, he actually did very little work on bone material from Aquincum itself, despite the fact that it was situated practically in his own backyard (BÖKÖNYI 1969). In the past twenty years archaeozoology has undergone a minor boom as researchers began to pose crucial socio-economic questions about past societies and their lifeways. Indeed, such data studied together with supporting traditional types of information on material culture can provide strong proof for the presence of certain kinds of agricultural, commercial, dietary and manufacturing activities. Variability in dietary and manufacturing behaviors can also provide insight into the kind of ever-changing pluralistic society we know to have been characteristic in provincial Roman territories. Indeed, while it is convenient to speak of 'Romans' in the sense of political and social organization, the ethnic composition of ancient 4 For example Frederik Zeuner's basic work on domestication, Charles Reed in the United States who worked on the question of domestication in the ancient Near East, J. Boessneck who established the so-called "Munich School" again to study domestication processes in the Near East. He also developed some of the basic methods used by archaeozoologists today. 5 Bökönyi, S., Animal Husbandry and Hunting in Tác-Gorsium. Budapest, 1984.