Kovács Tibor - Stanczik Ilona (szerk.): Bronze Age tell settlements of the Great Hungarian Plain I. (Inventaria Praehistorica Hungariae 1; Budapest, 1988)
Sándor BÖKÖNYI: Animal remains from Bronze Age tells in the Berettyó valley
in species. Table 1 shows that the remains of 15 species could be identified in the samples. Table 1 also demonstrates that the number of occurring wild species were not always in direct ratio on a given site: the 174 wild animal remains belonged to 11 species at Berettyóújfalu-Szilhalom, whereas the 369 wild remains from Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb only represented 10 species, and the wild bone sample from Gáborján-Csapszékpart (134 specimens) only yielded 5 wild species. Moreover, four wild animal species (otter, wolf, brown and wild bird) could be found at Berettyóújfalu-Szilhalom only, whilst wild cat and badger occurred only at Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb; in contrast, at GáborjánCsapszékpart there were no animal species that were not present on at least one of the other two sites. As regards the ratio of domestic to wild animals, this was 65.45:34.55 in Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb, 80.49: 19.51 in Gáborján-Csapszékpart, and 79.55:20.45 in Berettyóújfalu-Szilhalom, reflecting the dominance of domestic species in the samples. The main aim of hunting was the procurement of meat: the ratio of ungulates, the main meat animals, is overwhelming: it represents 95.94% of the wild fauna of Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb, 99.25% at Gáborján-Csapszékpart and 81.04% in Berettyóújfalu-Szilhalom. (If one recalls that all of the ungulates, with the exception of roe deer, were large-size animals, def nitely larger that the wild carnivores—except for brown bear-their meat quantity was obviously higher than the ratio of their bones.) Most of the occurring wild species were animals of the dense forest with undergrowth or of a well-watered environment (otter, beaver); only the aurochs, roe deer and brown hare preferred a habitat of grassy areas with forested spots ('Parklandschaft') or of agricultural land ('Kultursteppe'). Red deer was the most commonly hunted species of all three sites, which is typical for the Bronze Age and especially for its later two periods. 2 The aurochs remains that had been extremely numerous on Neolithic sites of this region 3 became much rarer, but their ratio was nonetheless high, particularly at Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb where it was over 23 per cent. (In fact this suggests the closeness of its habitat, the forested steppe.) As regards the domestic fauna of the Gyulavarsánd culture, cattle was the leading species, both in terms of the number of bone remains and the number of individuals, at Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb and Gáborján-Csapszékpart (which corresponds to the usual picture of Bronze Age sites prior to the more systematic and careful collection of animal bones), whereas at Berettyóújfalu-Szilhalom pig was the most common domestic species, followed by cattle and caprovines; at the same time, variation in the frequencies of the three species and groups were not too large. What is more conspicuous is that dog preceded horse in the approximate number of individuals on two sites (Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb and Gáborján-Csapszékpart), and that both species occurred in equal numbers at Berettyóújfalu-Szilhalom; however, in terms of the number of specimens horse is far more frequent than dog at Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb and somewhat more common on the two other sites (see Table 2). The first part of Table 2 clearly shows the close similarities and minor dissimilarities in the animal husbandry of the three sites. The similarities appear to be more determining, and they can be traced to the Table 2. The occurring domestic and wild species and their frequencies on the three sites Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb GáborjánCsapszékpart Bere ttyóúj'falu-Szilhalom specimen individual specimen individual specimen individual cattle-Bos taurus L. 301 18 275 13 195 13 sheep/goat- Ovis/Capra 155 14 123 7 194 14 pigSus scrofa dorn. L. 157 15 118 7 243 17 horse-Equus cabailus L. 77 6 21 4 24 3 dog-Canis familiáris L. 14 7 16 5 21 3 domestic animals 699 60 553 36 677 50 aurochs-Bos primigenius Boj. 86 8 18 6 21 4 red deer-Cervus elaphus L. 157 12 86 7 77 7 roe deer-Capreolus capreolus L. 7 2 9 4 11 3 wilde swine-Sus scrofa fer. L. 104 9 20 5 10 3 wilde cat-Felis silvestris Schreb. 1 1 lynx-Lynx lynx L. 1 1 badger-Mêles mêles L. 1 1 otter - Lutra lutra L. 1 1 brown bear-Ursus arctos L. 8 2 fox-Vulpes vulpes L. 1 1 8 2 wolf-Canis lupus L. 1 1 beaver-Castor fiber L. 4 2 1 1 brown hare —Lepus europaeus Pall. 1 1 wild birds- Aves — 19 4 pond tortoise —Emy s orbicularis L. 1 1 2 1 wild animals 370 39 234 23 174 28
