A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 36. - 1994 (Nyíregyháza, 1995)

István Vörös: Animal husbandry and hunting in the Middle Neolithic settlement at Tiszavasvári-Deákhalmi dűlő (Upper Tisza region)

István VÖRÖS decrease of the domestic animal remains (BÖKÖNYI 1959-, BÖKÖNYI 1974., BÖKÖNYI 1977., VÖRÖS 1980., VÖRÖS 1986., VÖRÖS 1987.). The proportion of the number of domestic and wild animal bones from Hungarian Neolithic sites Culture Number of sites Domestic animals Wild animals Körös 8 40-91 9-60 ALPC 4 94-98 2 - 6 ALPC + Tisza transition 4 63 - 78 22 - 37 Tisza 4 55-66 34 - 45 Herpály / Csőszhalom 3 22-30 70-78 There are a number of different opinions on the chronological changes of the proportion of domestic animals to wild animals, on the great importance of hunting in the Late Neolithic: 1, In the Late Neolithic the ruthless hunting of aurochs- wild boar- (red-deer, roe-deer) was an activity that „served the domestication" and was motivated by „domestication fever" (BÖKÖNYI 1968. 284-286., BÖKÖNYI 1977.10.,12.). 2, If, on the settlements of the Herpály/Csőszhalom, aurochs and wild boar had been domesticated - as S. Bökönyi states - then we ought to be able to separate the transitional forms between the wild and domestic forms and put them into a separate group. It is not reasonable to put „transitional animals under domestication" and the „already domesticated" ones with large bodies together with wild animals, the hunted species. If, from this consideration, we merge together the remains of the domestic animals and that of the „aurochs + (wild) boar" then the frequency of the domestic + „domesticated" animals would appear as 78 - 84 % despite the earlier published 22 - 30% relative frequency of domestic animals (JARMAN 1982.180-, Fig.77a.b.). This calibrated high proportion of domestic animals would show that in the period of „domestication fever", „planned" meat hunting logically decreased. The attractive idea of H.NJarman would thus be proved true, 1, if at the settlements of the Hungarian Late Neolithic Herpály/Csőszhalom cultures - or at other settlements - people were engaged in the mass domestication of aurochs and/or wild boar populations. However, no osteological or osteometrical evidence for the local domestication of aurochs and/or wild boar has been found at a single Neolithic settlement in the Carpathian basin. 2, if aurochs and wild boar found at settlements were already „domesticated" from an osteometrical point of view, then they should attain the size of a domestic animal. But in this case these animals(=domestic animals) can not be naturally identified and called wild animals. And animals identified on the basis of the size and structure of the bone as aurochs and wild boar are what they appear to be: wild animals. 3, if „low" intensity hunting activity were directed to meat animals only occasionally. However, out of six meat wild animals, four (aurochs, roe-deer, red-deer, wild boar) were intensively hunted, probably in the proportion to the density of their population. 4, if the hunting of aurochs, the largest meat animal in the temperate zone of Europe in the Carpathian basin of the Late Neolithic - together with the other four big wild animals - provided the communities with such a great quantity of meat that the primary use of meat of domestic animals could be abandoned. Having thousands of tons of wild animal meat, it was not necessary to revive the stock by local domestication of meat animals. Thus, the maintenance of the cattle stock with newly domesticated aurochs calves can not be demonstrated (BOKONYI 1974.112.). It was logical to suggest that the „extra wild animal meat" was traded for different kinds of raw materials (KALICZ-RACZKY 1987.122.). In the Carpathian basin, in the early Holocene, when the large mammal wild fauna was the richest in composition and greatest in its population density, the intensive „meat hunting" of the main wild animals makes it doubtful if it was necessary to domesticate at all. The main motivation of domestication, its main aim: to retrieve the lack of wild meat coming from the decrease of wild stock with the domestic animals kept under control on the spot (BOKONYI 1978. b.57.) is not true for the Late Neolithic in the Carpathian basin. Occasional hunting of the ALPC could be motivated by two factors: - either it was not necessary to have intensive meat hunting in addition to the developed domestic animal stock; - or in the period in question - 5500 - 4000 B.C. the population density of the large mammal fauna of the Carpathian basin was so low that there was no possibility to hunt more meat animals. The latter can be in connection with the observation that the immigration of the 2nd Holocene wild fauna wave into the Carpathian basin began with the appearance of the Tisza culture (VÖRÖS 1986.) and finished at the end of the Neolithic (VÖRÖS 1981., VÖRÖS 1986., VÖRÖS 1987.). The animal bone material of Tiszavasvári-Deákhalmi dűlő settlement can be compared with the fauna of 2 LPC, 3 TLPC (Transdanubian Linear Pottery Culture) - Zseliz Group, 2 ALPC Tiszadob group, 6 transitional ALPC - Early Tisza culture, 4 Vinőa Culture settlements (Table 7, 8): 1. Bylany (Kutna Horn, Czech Republic) - LPC (CLASON 1970.1-3., Notes 2., Tabl. I). In the list of 178 Jósa András Múzeum Évkönyve 1994