Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 23. 1984-1985 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1987)
Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Choyke, A. M. – Bartosiewicz László: Animal exploitation and its relationship the bone deposition at Lovasberény-Mihályvár. p. 7–18.
TANULMÁNYOK—ABHANDLUNGEN Alba Regia, XXIII, 1987 A. M. CHOYKE — L. BARTOSÏEWICZ ANIMAL EXPLOITATION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO BONE DEPOSITION AT LOVASBERÉNY— MIHÁLYVÁR Introduction 1 Recently, the analysis of faunal remains has gained in its relative importance, due to the recognition that animal bones deposited during the occupation of ancient settlements represent evidence of prehistoric subsistence and meat consumption in particular. Basic aspects of the archaeozoological evaluation include the study of problems which are partly zoological in nature, although even such examinations (reconstruction of individual size, ecological interpretations in terms of species availability etc.) are mostly aimed at economic-cultural conclusions. It should not be forgotten, however, that faunal remains are directly reflective of consumption activities and only indirectly related to animal husbandry and hunting practices. On the other hand, it should be possible to identify gross trends in these areas of production, particularly when large bone assemblages are at hand. The diversity of approaches to faunal data offers additional ways to interpret this class of materials. In this paper, animal bones will be regarded primarily as archaeological artificats and used in an attempted seriation of the features recovered during the excavations of LovasberenyMihályvár, a Middle Bronze age Vatya culture hill-fort in the Velence hill region of Western Hungary. Emphasis will be laid on the number of animal remains per species, and the possible patterning that may emerge from the distributions between the bones of certain animals. As a result detailed information on zoological data is referred to in another work (Choyke 1983b), while specific archaeozoological parameters (minimum numbers of individuals, metric evaluation etc.) should form part of a future standard faunal report. Since the time interval spanned by an archaeological culture is relatively long (approximately two centuries in this case), even if sub-divided by derivatives of the main ceramic types, a new dimension was sought to provide an additional viewpoint. Aside from an introductory faunal analysis, mammalian remains from this site were used in hypothetical numerical seriations to identify chronological/functional units into which the continuum of features might be classified. Animal bones were deemed appropirate for this purpose due to their great numbers and widespread occurrence, proportionally high degree of identifiability and relation to day-today consumption strategies. While the descriptive faunal analysis was used to provide a reliable picture of consumption patterns in general, and animal remains could also be used in the seriation of the settlement's features, particular caution must be taken with the interpretation and further use of this information. Seriation units, as defined by DORAN —HODSON (1976) were assigned to hypothetical orders solely on the basis of between unit comparisons. In this study external evidence (that is ceramic dating, spatial distribution etc. ; Neustuphny 1978) was consciously ignored as more relevant to the purposes of subsequent archaeological analyses (Bandi—Petres 1969). It was hoped that although the diagnostic value of garbage bone samples cannot compete with culturally/stylistically more formal ceramics, mapping the variation in faunal materials this way, will help focus the archaeological analysis in terms of other aspects of dailly life at this Middle Bronze age site. Evaluation of the Material (1) The authors would like to thank the staff of the King Stephen Museum of Székesfehérvár for the help and support offered during the collection of the data presented here. In particular we would like to acknowledge Dr. É. F. Petres, one of the excavators of Lovasberény — Mihályvár. Much of the data analysis and writing up of the basic data was carried out under one year grants from the American Association of University Women (1978—1979) and the International Research and Exchanges Board (1979—1980). Computer use for the bulk of the statistical calculation was made available through the offices of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The material studied here came from four years of excavation. The site is divided by an earthwork into a larger and a smaller section. The latter ("Kisvár") has been almost totally investigated. Its material comes from over 80 pits, midden areas and3 buildings. Smaller trenches (about 1% of the excavated area) were also placed around the edge of the larger section and immediately outside it. Sieving with 5 mm screens was carried out only in these latter two areas. Excavations in all but one of the trenches were taken down to sterile earth. 7
