Abstracts
Animal-Human Interdependencies – Where Are We Now?
Alice Choyke
choyke@ceu.hu
Animals slide in and out of human consciousness. In the process they are transformed from simple biological beings into quite different depending on the cultural context they appear in, in this case the medieval urban context. Furthermore, information about the close and complex interdependencies between humans and animals in medieval towns and cities in Europe come from very different kinds of sources including modern ethological or biological studies of behavior, images, texts and archaeozoology is produced in very different ways for very different audiences. The animals themselves may be deliberately manipulated by the human population or live side by side with them in various symbiotic relationships. Within the close confines of the physical and mental urban landscape the boundaries between animals and humans – and different types of animals becomes blurred or manipulated for particular purposes and audiences.
The task of reconciling such disparate sources of information is fraught with intellectual pitfalls. Archaeozoologists often interpret textual and image data forgetting that what they are seeing may have more to do with genre or convention than reflection of some kind of practical reality. At the same time people working with images and textual sources may fail to make use of the more homely data produced by archaeozoologists. Scholars in various fields may thus, know very little about how ‘their subject’ is approached in other scholarly fields of endeavor. Sometimes such animal data is complementary, sometimes contradictory and sometimes so different as to be non-compatible at any level with other research methodologies. Nevertheless, knowledge is power. It is hoped that by bringing together scholars with different kinds of data, in this case about about animals in urban contexts, we will all take another small step in the direction of interdisciplinary, integrated approaches to study of human-animals relationships in the past.
Animals In and Out of Town: Their Use in Byzantine Historical Narratives
Stephanos Efthymiadis
stephefthym@gmail.com
If reports about animals fail to occupy significant space in the long series of Byzantine historiographical works, this is surely owing to the Greek-Roman literary tradition which places center stage men of power and their deeds. Moreover, in a literary genre practiced throughout the Byzantine millennium in accordance with the teachings of rhetoric, animals and their proximity or distance from human beings is recorded only exceptionally, i.e., when the narrative diverts to the realm of daily life and popular culture. From Prokopios (6th c.) to Georgios Pachymeres (13th-14th c.) Byzantine historiographers include several snapshots of considerable length where fauna figures prominently, acquiring a variety of meanings and interpretations. Wild and exotic animals like elephants and giraffes parading through the streets of Constantinople operate as both an entertaining subject that attracts popular attention and as suggestive of a cosmopolitan capital and an immense empire which reaches the borders of an outer wild world; beasts attacking the emperor while campaigning are there in order to suggest how frail and vulnerable a man of power can be outside his palace; the appearance of awe-inspiring animals in an urban environment ties in with beliefs in omens and apocalyptic determinism. On the basis of these and more examples many questions may be addressed and the marginal role of animals in Byzantine historiographical narrative be seen as fulfilling precise literary and political purposes.
Animal Symbolism in Everyday Life in Late Medieval Towns
Brigitte Resl
B.Resl@liverpool.ac.uk
Research about medieval animal symbolism usually concentrates on their religious or heraldic meanings. Animals were also common symbols in profane everyday contexts in medieval towns. Michel Camille has argued that 'the images found on the medieval street refuse [the] myth of plenitude organized by the Church's system of signs'. Profane urban animal symbols, therefore, require different methods of interpretation. This paper will explore animals depicted in profane urban art and architecture as well as animal symbolism in popular entertainment. Drawing on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches the ambivalences of animals used as a 'sign on the street' will be discussed. The main examples will be taken from late medieval French towns.
Animals in Medieval Italian Towns:
From Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages
Frank Salvadori
Frank.salvadori@unisi.it
The aim of this work is to evaluate the distribution of animals in Italian medieval towns, starting out from a rigorous census of the archaeozoological reports published over the last three decades, from the appearance of the first article relating to the study of medieval faunas by Graeme Barker, presented in 1973 in the Papers of the British School at Rome, until the most recent papers. Thanks to the use of IT (alphanumerical databases and GIS platforms), developed by the Laboratory of Information Technology Applied to Medieval Archaeology (LIAAM, http://archeologiamedievale.unisi.it/LIAAM/), it has been possible to observe a wide range of animals related to environmental change in towns during the Middle Ages, and their interactions with the surrounding territory. This taxonomic diversity, in which some various zoological classes – such as mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and amphibians are present, should be observed as economic, social, ritual and many other human expressions.
"Drunkenness is the mother of forgetfulness, anger causes injuries": Animal Welfare in Late Medieval English Urban Society
Briony Atchinson
bla1@st-andrews.ac.uk
A great variety of animals were present in mediaeval urban society, from horses
and dogs to parrots and monkeys, all of which needed to be taken care of on a
daily basis. This paper looks at those who were responsible for animal welfare
in the households of the nobility and gentry, examining their status in
society, their need to be physically and mentally suited to the job, the source
of their knowledge, and their daily responsibilities. Through such an
examination not only is the actuality of animal welfare indicated, but also the
relationships between carer and owner and carer and animal.
Animals as Presents in Medieval Livonia
Anu Mänd
anumand@hot.ee
In the ritual of gift-giving or gift-exchange, (exotic) animals occupied as important place as, for example, precious metal objects, expensive fabrics or books. In this context, animals served as objects of display or of curiosity, to be shown to and to impress a wide range of witnesses. Gifts included living animals as well as those prepared as food (especially as a kind of surprise dish). This article discusses some examples of animals as presents in late medieval Livonia – a borderland of Catholic Europe. The idea is to demonstrate how, on the one hand, similar tendencies can be observed there as in the Western Europe, and, on the other hand, how the choice of presents reflected the possibilities of the “periphery” where there were no magnificent courts.
Urban Jungle? Wild Mammals in Medieval Towns
Aleks Pluskowski
a.g.pluskowski@reading.ac.uk
Medieval towns concentred human populations as well as those of numerous other species. Some of these were brought in by people and carefully managed within the contexts of provisioning (such as cattle) and transportation (such as horses); the former group has dominated the zooarchaeological study of medieval urban assemblages. However, the recovery of animal remains representing ‘urban wildlife’ has also enabled extinct town ecosystems to be modelled. These remains are not only restricted to microfauna; there is evidence for a diverse range of resident and transient mammal populations co-existing alongside people in towns. Today, in urban centres which are significantly more developed in terms of size, communications and population density, there is continued evidence for overlapping urban and rural ecologies. Bears come down from the Carpathian Mountains to feed off human waste in the suburbs of Brasov; in central London the fox is a common nocturnal sight around green spaces; in Bucharest and Oslo wolves have been spotted covering significant distances in search of food and shelter. In the Middle Ages, when towns were much smaller and distinctions with rural settlements were arguably sharper, what evidence is there for wild mammals – the most visible non-human urban dwellers alongside birds – moving in and out of the hinterland and residing within the built-up area, and what can this tell us about the distinctiveness of the medieval urban environment? Can they be distinguished from wild mammals brought in by humans? Is there any evidence for contemporary recognition of ‘urban wildlife’? This paper will focus on select case studies, synthesising faunal remains, artefacts, written and artistic sources to explore the roles of wild mammals in the physical and conceptual ecologies of medieval towns.
A Deposit of Pig’s Feet from Medieval Ireland
Fiona Beglane
fionabeglane@yahoo.com
Excavation around the town and medieval castle of Trim, Co. Meath in Ireland unearthed a typical medieval urban animal bone assemblage including butchery, food and craft waste. One enigmatic deposit of bones consisted almost entirely of pig fore-legs including only the radius, ulna, carpals, metacarpals and phalanges and excluding all but a single humerus. A small number of cattle, sheep and horse bones were also present in the context. The material is examined with reference to archaeological and modern butchery and food preparation and a number of potential interpretations are suggested. Readers of the poster are invited to contribute suggestions and comments on the interpretation
Grave Animal Matter: A Study of Early Medieval Mortuary Fauna
Tara-Jane Sutcliff
tjs502@york.ac.uk
Archaeology is the quest to understand what it is to be human, phenomenological study of the past experience of our humanity. Study so important because the category 'human', akin to gender, is a socio-cultural construct of continuing manipulation: witness, for example, the current debate into the 'use' of human genes. Definition, however, lies often in what a thing is not - this is particularly true for humans as a species set apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Indeed, throughout the past Man has defined himself in and through his relationships with animals: both physical and conceptual. At the same time, to be human is to be mortal: much of the meaning invested in life is owing to the inexorable fact of death. Thus, the study of mortuary practices continues to contribute to our understanding of what it is to be human - as much in the past as in the present. Bringing these two strands together, my research adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Anglo-Saxon mortuary fauna. Men, women and children; those both ostensibly wealthy and those poor; those buried in pre- and post- Christianised contexts: all are represented amongst those who were accompanied by faunal deposits. Why? This research poster provides an introduction to the empirical evidence of my research, through which I hope to pique your interest and look forward to questions and suggestions.
Tracing the Elusive Bears of Late Antique Antioch: The damnatio ad bestias in the Life of St. Symeon the Elder Stylite
Cristian Gaspar
cristian.libanios@gmail.com or Gasparc@ceu.hu
The present paper attempts to trace the gradual disappearance of bears (and other wild beasts) from the urban landscape of Antioch in Late Antiquity together with the social events, institutions, and legal practices that had traditionally provided opportunities for the insertion of these animals into the urban spaces of the Roman Empire, the venationes and the damnatio ad bestias.
In doing so, I will start by investigating an interesting passage of the Greek Life of St. Symeon the Elder Stylite (d. 459), composed in a first version sometime between the saint’s death in 459 and 471. This rarely discussed, but fascinating text is plagued by various problems of authenticity, authorship, and interpretation, and still does not have a critical edition worthy of the name in spite of (or maybe precisely because of) the great popularity it seems to have enjoyed in Late Antiquity and in Byzantine times. My discussion will focus on ch. 20 of the Life, which tells the miraculous saga of an (apparently) famous late antique bandit, Antiochos Gonatas, who, condemned to death in the arena because of his countless crimes, nevertheless managed a spectacular last-minute escape. In this, he was helped by his intelligent mare and by Symeon the Stylite, who offered him refuge at the foot of his column, at the risk of turning against himself the public opinion at Antioch, the fourth largest city in the Later Roman Empire, and of depriving the hungry bears in the city’s arena of their sparring partner.
This episode is variously treated in the various Greek manuscripts of the Life, the abovementioned bears undergoing various metamorphoses (and eventually vanishing without trace) at the hand of later scribes and of the Westerners who translated the text into Latin quite soon after its composition. I will argue that this disappearance is symptomatic of a certain narrowing of real-life and mental horizons in the Christian Roman Empire. This was brought about by several factors, among which I will briefly discuss and illustrate the following: the disappearance of urban institutions (such as the urban games that provided the venues for the venationes), of behaviors and ideologies that helped maintain them (such as traditional Graeco-Roman euergetic ideals and practices), as well as the re-definition of the late antique urban elite (the decuriones, who staffed and ruled the city councils of late antique cities) and its values (among which expensive beast shows as an expression of civic status and urban pride still took pride of place in the fourth century CE) under the significant impact of Christian discourse and ideology. This rejected and attempted to undermine by word and deed traditional and costly expressions of civic pride and elite self-consciousness such as the importation to Antioch and the upkeep of expensive, non-native bears that could be made to fight and die in the arena, in the process tearing apart the limbs of bandits less fortunate than Antiochos Gonatas, to the cheers of the less well off, but well entertained citizens of Antioch.
A Lion-King or a Philosopher-King? The Rhetorics of Animal Imagery at the Imperial Court of Late Constantinople
Florin Leonte
MPHLEF01@phd.ceu.hu
The Byzantine world, just as in many other societies, constantly used animals for illustrating human abstract values. People in Byzantium ascribed to particular species an ethical content which was subsequently used for constructing arguments in support of public or private positions. Quite often similes and metaphors centered upon animals found their way into rhetorical texts intended to convey political messages. Such rhetorical figures became instrumental in both types of rhetoric cultivated in Byzantium: the epideictic (laudatory) and the deliberative (advisory). In the present paper I try to illustrate the use of animal imagery during the last phase of Byzantine history by analyzing the texts of two late Byzantine writers, Manuel Philes (1275-1345) and Manuel Palaiologos (1350-1425). On the basis of a close analysis of the contexts in which allusions and descriptions of animals appear I will argue for a double determinism of animal imagery at the Constantinopolitan court during the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Thus, apart from the rather conventional use of animals in political discourse, the court literati disclose a genuine interest in animals as well. While Manuel Palaialogos frequently describes his enemies as wolves, Manuel Philes, dedicated an extensive poem to the description of animals both fantastic (griffins) and real (eagles, lions, bees, etc.) The two approaches, which often permeated each other, support the idea of a possible structural change in the imperial ideology of late Byzantium: whereas the traditional image of the warrior king continued to play its part, the image of the learned ruler concerned with intellectual issues, including nature, started to gain an even more significant role.
Zooarchaeological Researches from a Privileged Urban Building in Medieval Durrës (Albania)
A. Buglione, G. De Venuto, S. Santoro, B. Sassi
giovannidvenuto@yahoo.it
Within an historical and archaeological project led by University of Parma (director Sara Santoro) in the area of the Durres Roman amphitheatre, zooarchaeological analysis begun last summer on bones samples collected in the Late Antique and Medieval layers. The study allowed us to reconstruct the diet, the environment and the economical activities about the area of the city occupied by a privileged medieval building (palatium).
Sheep/goats, cattle and pigs are the most represented species, with a prevalence of the first ones for the meat supply. The frequent presence of bones belonging to the forelimb and to the hind limb (radius, tibias, femur) and the lower attestation of the cranial elements and of the extremities (metapodials and phalanges) could indicate an external provisioning at the site. The cattle were killed during the subadult age for the alimentary uses. These elements seem to propose an active economical life of the city, capable to attract resources from its territory, probably in a phase of demographic increase. A ruralizing phenomenon in the city is not recognizable in this period (13th-14th century). Wild animal remains are few: among these we can recognize roe-buck and wild boar. Some wild bird has been identified. Finally, it was possible to think of a high life style about the inhabitants of the palatium.
Oxen, Pigs, and Sheep in the Medieval City: An Analysis of Regulations Concerning Domestic Animals in the Statutes of Medieval Dalmatian Towns
Hrvoje Kekez
hrvojekez@yahoo.com
Statutes from medieval towns are collections of regulatory law whose main purpose was to organize everyday life in medieval urban communities. Each medieval Dalmatian towns had its own statutes, and most have been preserved in the archives. In this paper, the author will examine statutes from medieval Zadar, Skradin, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, Hvar, Korcula, Lastovo and Dubrovnik. The statutes of these cities were written in a period from the beginning of 13th to the end of 16th century.
The great majority of regulations in these statutes concerned public and political life in the city, but also city government and the area of its authority. Nevertheless, some articles in statutes from medieval towns contain rules and regulations about keeping and breeding domestic animals in the town area.
The primary goal of this paper is to detect what kinds of animals are mentioned in the statutes, which dwelled in the towns, and which were forbidden to be kept in the city area. These statutes also rather frequently mention the damage that was done by domestic animals. Therefore, author will be interested in regulations and punishments for their owners, and the ways of compensations for damage and loss.
Secondly, because sheep were the most important domestic animals in Dalmatia, both coast and islands, special note will be made of regulations concerning breeding sheep and areas where they were kept and pastured. Most of the medieval city inhabitants could not keep the sheep by themselves, so they usually gave their cattle under supervision to the professional shepherds. They kept animals in mountains near the city or island’s inland. Therefore, many regulations describe shepherds and relations of city dwellers to them.
Finally, some words will be said about other types of animals (like oxen, cows, dogs and donkeys) which were very important in the economy of medieval Dalmatian town. Also, there are some specific rules about keeping horses inside of the city walls. It is important to say that only a few groups of city population had the privilege to own them. This was minutely described in most statutes of Dalmatian towns.
Main goal of this paper is to describe the rules of keeping and breeding animals in medieval Dalmatian towns, to define patterns which are common in all cities’ statutes, but also to detect specific situations in individual towns. This paper will be based on published historical documents and also on recent work on this topic.
Dogs in Church
Gerhard Jaritz
jaritzg@ceu.hu
There were only five out last Sunday,
but that was enough, and they made
themselves felt, seen and heard.
As members of a congregation
assembled for religious worship,
dogs are a decided failure.
(The Gonzales Inquirer,
May 6, 1882)
Dogs in church were not only an obvious problem for some authors, writers, and newspaper reporters of the nineteenth and twentieth century. They had already occurred in the discourses about upset and disturbances in late medieval churches. There they were in good company not only with other animals but also with gossiping females, inattentive couples or annoying youngsters. The late medieval textual and visual evidence is mainly to be found in urban space and was also meant for an especially urban audience. The paper comparatively approaches such animals in the religious space of late medieval towns and their evaluation in the visual and textual source material.
“All the Priests’ Horses and all the Priests’ Hens…”
Animals in Urban Households in Medieval Hungary on the Basis of Last Wills
Katalin Szende
Szendek@ceu.hu
Medieval urban space, in spite of its allegedly more civilized character than the surrounding countryside, was far from being void of animals. Besides a special urban fauna connected to and utilized by trades and crafts, which is more conspicuous in the sources, there were plenty of animals hidden in the back yards of town households as well, which were too common to be frequently mentioned. An exception to the general silence of sources about household animals is presented by last wills, texts usually composed at a life-stage when the testator’s entire household had to be rearranged. In lack of an obvious general heir, for instance in case of childless widows and of priests, each item had to be specified and bequeathed. This provides an unexpected insight, beside more elevated matters, into the animal-keeping customs of these members of urban society. The examined sources from late medieval Hungarian towns indicate that priests, especially members of the lower clergy who were in charge of altar prebends, had households and domestic animals very similar to their lay compatriots – although some species reflected higher standards than the average. This likeness of lifestyle may have been one of the factors which made it so easy and attractive to accept the new ideals of priestly life propagated by the Reformation.
Birds in the Medieval Urban Environment
Erika Gál
gal_erika@yahoo.com; gal@archeo.mta.hu
By the Middle Ages, bird meat- and egg provisioning were already well established through poultry keeping in the Carpathian Basin. The hunting of game, including wild birds, often was the privilege of the high-status social strata. This attitude towards the poultry and wild fowl, in spite of the rather scarce archaeozoological assemblages, is also to some extent reflected in bone finds.
The exploitation of chicken not only met daily nutritional needs, but had become a productive sector in market terms as well by the 16th-17th centuries. Mobile peasants from Western Transdanubia transported and sold chickens and eggs in Hungarian cities and in Vienna alike. The domestic goose also was exploited for its meat, fat, liver, feathers and bone.
Nevertheless, people also felt attracted to terrestrial ornamental birds such as the peacock, crane and pheasants. Semi-tamed birds of these species kept by wealthy people in cities used were exploited for their appearance, beautiful feathers and meat alike. Other wild species such as geese, ducks, the great bustard, small song birds and especially galliforms also were occasionally eaten. Most of these birds were trapped and sold at the market by the peasantry.
The presence of corvids is noteworthy in urban archaeological assemblages. Although several written and ethnological sources indicate the continuous consumption of these birds, both by well situated and poor people, it is unlikely that all of these birds were eaten. One has to consider the social character and daring attitude of these birds towards people. By moving from their original habitat into urban environments, these birds not only escaped their natural enemies but their food also was continuously insured by markets, slaughtering houses, refuse dumps and other similar places.
Faunal Studies in Novgorod:
Potential and Problems of Integrated Research Projects
Mark Maltby
mmaltby@bournemouth.ac.uk
Archaeological investigations within the medieval town of Novgorod, NW Russia, have taken place over decades. Large excavations have been carried out in several areas of the town including in recent years those on the Troitsky sites near the south of the town’s Kremlin. Waterlogged conditions have provided superb preservation of organic materials including a succession of complete roads, other wooden structures and property boundaries. The excavations have produced large quantities of leatherwork, plant remains and insects. Hundreds of deciphered birch bark documents have also provided unique insights into the lives of some of the inhabitants of the town. Vast quantities of animal bones have been found but rarely retained for analysis. This rich archaeology provides exciting opportunities for integrated approaches to how urban space was used. The paper will discuss this potential in relation specifically to the excavations of some of the Troitsky sites and the animal bones collected from there between 1993 and 2000. The methods of sampling and analysis will be critically evaluated and the practical problems faced in realising the potential of detailed integrated studies will be discussed.
From Ape to Zebra: Creating a Cycle of Knowledge on the Various Traces of Animals in the Middle Ages
Ingrid Matschinegg
Ingrid.matschinegg@oeaw.ac.at
The presentation reports on a work in progress-project, which aimed to establish and maintain a collaborative knowledge-base to further the interdisciplinary study of the man-animal relations in the Middle Ages. Our goal is to create a constantly growing “bottom-up” knowledge-base that collects and shares contributions from the various historical fields.
The encyclopaedia was the classical genre for the writing on nature and animals during the Middle Ages. Nowadays, such comprehensive thematic encyclopaedias are realized on the internet by members of online-communities. Based on the successful and well known Wikipedia, we initiated the “Animalwiki” as a pilot project of the “Medieval Animal Data-Network”, an open working group of animal-experts. The paper provides an overview of our current activities.
Domestic and Hunted Animals in Late Medieval Visegrád
István Kovats
thrax@freemail.hu
Visegrád is a settlement with a rich historical heritage, located on the right bank of the Danube river within the hilly region once called the Pilis Forest in historical sources. In 1323, King Charles Robert, founder of the Hungarian Anjou Dynasty, moved his royal seat here from Temesvár (Timisoara, modern-day Romania); the presence of the royal court transformed the previously small settlement into an important town in medieval Hungary. Until the end of the 15th century, Visegrád remained the official seat and country residence of the Hungarian kings, and a stronghold, which controlled the Danube River between Buda and Esztergom.
Excavations in the area of the palace and town, on-going since the 1930s, have chiefly yielded architectural remains, and other finds dating from the 14th to the early 16th centuries. Animal bones form a large portion of this rich find assemblage. The city’s burghers predominantly kept domestic mammals including cattle, pigs and domestic fowl, primarily chicken. Hunting was pushed into the background although more bones of wild animals (roe deer, red deer and wild swine) came to light in the Royal Palace and the Citadel. The presentation is a short review of animal remains recovered from the stratigraphically best known areas and parts of some sites from Late Medieval Visegrád.
Animals in Late Medieval Buda Castle
Daróczi-Szabó László
lacidsz@freemail.hu
In the past ten years important excavations were done at the Szent György square (Buda castle, Budapest, Hungary) by archaeologists of the Budapest History Museum. Among other finds starting from the late Árpád-period (second half of the 13th century) to the modern days, a vast number of animal bones came to the surface. The analysis of animal bones (mainly focused on the 14-15th century), and their comparison with bones from a medieval house from the northern end of the castle gives us the possibility of getting important informations about animal using in the medieval Buda Castle.
What Makes an Urban Animal Assemblage Look Urban? Reflections on Diversity, Tool Marks, and Recurrent Patterns
Karl Günter Kunst
Guenter.karl..kunst@univie.ac.at
This paper discusses the potential factors involved in shaping “typical” urban faunal assemblages. As opposed to rural settings, urban situations are characterized by a certain concentration of wealth, of consumers of animal products, and of certain crafts activities and by being integrated into market networks. This may lead, eventually, to the accumulation of important animal bone assemblages related to various human activities, ranging from butchery, bone working and specialized consumption to the dumping of animal carcasses. Sanitary considerations, caused by the raised fallout of garbage, and constraints set by the spatial restrictions within towns, may be responsible for the creation of most samples. On the other hand, renovation and rebuilding activities provide a wide range of contexts acting as potential waste receptacles.
As a consequence, a frequent feature found in urban bone accumulations is a certain degree of “structuring” in species and/or element composition, or in the distribution of tool marks, which is normally not met at rural producers’ sites. Due to raised financial power, exotic or wild species are also more likely to enter the archaeological record than elsewhere in the historic period. The same seems to be true for the early adoption of “new” domesticates or certain breeds and for commensal and urbanized species. On the other hand, there is also the possibility to find (nearly) monospecific assemblages among urban rubbish. Medieval, but also Roman and early post-medieval animal bone samples from various Austrian sites are taken as examples for testing these presumptions.
“Proud as a Peacock ...”? Analyzing Visual Representations
of Animals in Medieval Urban Space
Isabella Nicka
bellanic@gmx.de
Visual representations always give – literally – an insight into the past. Nevertheless the very simple question to what extent the depictions represent a “historical reality” is yet so difficult to answer. Pursuing a kind of case study on animals in medieval cities, I focus on depictions of peacocks in urban contexts in European paintings and miniatures from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The reasons, why the iridescent bird is placed in an artistic composition are of course manifold: religious causes, moralising intentions, decorative use, peacocks as being a part of a narration or a poem, acting as an indicator for a certain social group and so on. The comparison of the pictures with peacocks occurring in medieval literature, natural sciences, archeozoology and recipes is one part of the survey, which rather reveals a difference between the visual artefacts and the other sources than a consistence of both. The reasons for that – various regional traditions, artistic preferences in their selection and use of motifs (e.g. due to consolidate knowledge or the wants of the patron of the painting), change in the symbolic meaning or state of the bird – shall be the issue of the second part.
The Diet of Ipswich from the Middle Saxon through the Medieval Periods
Pam Crabtree
PamCDoug@comcast.net
The Anglo-Saxon emporia are the first towns that appear in post-Roman northern Europe. Archaeologists and historians have been interested in these centers since the time of Henri Pirenne because they reflect the changes in political, economic, and social organization that took place in northern Europe between the 7th and the 10th centuries. Ipswich, located in Suffolk in eastern England, was one of the most important of the British emporia. The ‘Origins of Ipswich’ project, which began
in 1974, was designed to explore the history of this medieval town from its foundation in the 7th century through to the end of the Middle Ages. This paper will explore the use of animals in Ipswich from the Middle Saxon through the medieval period, focusing on the ways in which changing patterns of animal use reflect transformations in urban life in Saxon and medieval Ipswich.
People and Animals in a Medieval Hungarian Market Town
Kyra Lyublyanovics
Grane_lavrans@yahoo.no
Muhi was a key market town in the medieval cattle trade, and currently it is the only fully excavated and analysed oppidum in Hungary. The settlement was located in Northeastern Hungary, at the meeting point of the Bükk mountain area and the Great Hungarian Plain. This oppidum served as a centre for grain production, but large-scale animal markets were also held here. In my study I focus on animal keeping in Muhi on the basis of archaeological bone finds. Written evidence from this period is rare and scattered, and only little is known in general about animal keeping in market towns. The Muhi assemblage provides an insight into the diet and animal keeping practices of the inhabitants.
Cattle dominate the picture throughout the whole middle ages. Meat production in the earlier period (12-13th century) seems self-sufficient, but inhabitants sometimes completed their diet with wild species or sturgeon, which was imported from a larger distance. Later, however, partly as a consequence of the cattle trade and better meat supply, the importance of beef increased and the percentage of cattle remains in the kitchen refuse grows. At the same time, pathological bones of overworked specimens almost entirely disappear from the later layers. There are, however, no traces of the large Hungarian type of cattle that was present in the domestic and international trade in the 14-17th century, a clear contradiction between written records and archaeological evidence.
The Control of Animal Waste in the Urban Environment: Evidence, Interpretation and the Place of Archaeology
Krish Seetah (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge)
ks354@cam.ac.uk
Butchery has been described as potentially “the single greatest taphonomic (and biostratinomic) factor in the formation of humanly created fossil assemblages” (Lyman 1994: 294). By implication this would suggest that copious amounts of animal bone result from the practice of butchery and this is clearly evident on archaeological sites independent of whether the site is urban or rural. However, the control of ‘waste’ poses particular problems in an urban environment, especially when this consists of viscera, internal organs and digestive waste.
This paper will explore issues of waste management within urban environments, the evidence that is available to us to determine how waste control was performed and the implications that archaeology has for addressing issues of disposal.
Faunal Exploitation Patterns at Urban Settlements in Medieval Moldavia
Luminita Bejenaru (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi)
lumib@uaic.ro ; bejlumi@yahoo.com
The traditions of the urban life in Medieval Moldavia have been revealed more later than in central and occidental Europe. The historians consider as main reason for this situation the missing here of certain urban centres in the Antiquity with continuum development to Middle Ages. The invasions of the oriental tribes are also invoked. The genesis of the urban centres in Medieval Moldavia was a consequence of the economical development, including the handcraft wares, commerce and also the agrarian production. Both the local populations and the foreign elements have contributed to the urban development.
According to the documentary and archaeological information, the urban peoples in Medieval Moldavia have practiced the plant cultivation and the animal husbandry in the settlement perimeters and also in the adjacent areas. The archaeozoological analyses made for five urban settlements (Siret, Baia, Vaslui, Targu Trotus, Orheiul Vechi) emphasize the importance of the animal husbandry for the local economies. Thus, the frequencies of the domestic animal remains are very high, with values of about 95%. Cattle dominate the assemblages, with more than half of the identified remains. The archaeozoological studies have pointed out certain of the exploitation patterns at the livestock level, including the age and sex selections, butchery techniques. The hunting is less represented, with about 1% wild mammal remains. The commerce with the fish and the isolated consume of the horse meat have been identified of archaeozoological point of view.
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