As the regular FRWG meeting was posponed to 2022 a "pre"-FRWG online meeting successfully took place 23.08.2021 at the OAW/OAI presenting the followig topics
- 13:00 (MEZ/CET)
Intro:
general information on the current online meeting and the upcoming ICAZ FRWG meeting 2022 in Vienna – The Organizers - 13:10 – 14:10 (MEZ/CET)
Postmedieval – Modern Times fish consumption and latrine pit fillings
The latrine pit filling from Hadersdorf am Kamp in Austria – a case study
The archaeological context – G. Scharrer-Liska (15 min)
The archaeozoological context – H. Böhm & A. Galik (15 min)
The fishbones – A. Galik (15 min)
Diskussion (chair G. Haidvogl - 15 min) - 14:15 – 15:00 (MEZ/CET)
Koprolites and fish bones from the Ljubljansko barje in Slovenia
The archaeological and archaeobotanical context T. Tolar (15 min)
The fish bones A. Galik (15 min)
Diskussion (chair J. Kriwet - 15 min) - 15:05 – 16:00 (MEZ/CET)
Waterlogged finds from Mooswinkel at Mondsee in Austria
The archaeological context C. Dworsky, J. Leskovar (15 min)
Fodder management for domestic animals: Microhistological analyses of ruminant dung T. Jakobitsch (15 min)
Fish and others D. Nikolaidou & A. Galik (15 min)
Diskussion (chair G. K. Kunst 15 min) - 16:00 – 16:15 (MEZ/CET)
General discussion (chaired by the organizers)
Abstracts:
Postmedieval – Modern Times fish consumption and latrine pit fillings
The latrine pit filling from Hadersdorf am Kamp in Lower Austria – a case study – the archeological context
Gabriele Scharrer-Liska
Hadersdorf am Kamp is situated approximately 57 km northwest from Vienna in the southern valley of the Kamp River. Due to its location and participation in the Danube trade Hadersdorf developed into a flourishing trading and industrial center in the early modern period. In 1991, in Hadersdorf's town hall a well/latrine pit was discovered under the floor of the building. Subsequently, the pit with a preserved depth of 4.10 m and constructed of dry masonry, was archaeologically examined. The pit’s filling, the so called "faecal layer" with a volume of approx. 3 m³, was completely recovered. The samples were processed by wet sieving immediately after their removal. The sieve fractions with the addition of a preserving agent were stored for about 25 years. In 2016 a project was started to classify the latrine’s finds and to evaluate them in a Central European context. The decision to examine this long-stored material was due to the extremely abundant tiny animal- and plant remains as well as some extraordinary artefacts.
The latrine pit filling from Hadersdorf am Kamp in Austria – a case study: The archaeozoological context (mammal- and bird remains)
Herbert Böhm and Alfred Galik
Due to their exceptional preservation conditions latrine fills represent important (bio-)archaeological archives that provide valuable insights especially into diet, cooking practices and waste disposal patterns of past societies. Most of the find materials of latrine fillings examined until now derive from medieval and early modern urban settings and therefore portray a specific, although diverse, population share. The archaeological remains from the latrine of the city hall of Hadersdorf am Kamp, Lower Austria complement and widen our perspective, since they mainly represent the food waste of the inhabitants of a small provincial market town during the 16th and early 17th century AD. This presentation gives an overview of the mammal- and bird remains of this site, which are, in addition to the rich ichthyofauna, essential for the comprehensive reconstruction of the diet and food preparation processes of this community. Based on species- and skeletal element distribution, as well as on the examination of anthropogenic bone modifications and taphonomic observations, a first evaluation of the dietary habits was undertaken and contextualized. Furthermore, this find- material provides evidence for the spectrum of food resources used in early modern provincial settlements of Central Europe.
Fish remains from Hadersdorf:
Alfred Galik
The early modern age ichthyo-archaeological remains come from a latrine filling located in the town hall of Hadersdorf at the river Kamp in Lower Austria North of Vienna. The distribution of fish remains from Hadersdorf resemble the picture of other modern latrine sites in Austria. Besides a few larger fish specimens, the major part of the material consists of tiny – “micro” remains of various fish species, mainly cyprinids but also other small sized fishes and imported herring. A thorough “archaeobotanical-like” examination of the remains with usage of a microscope and the photographic documentation and digital surveying offers the opportunity to estimate the age of the fishes and probably the season fish was caught. These remains may locally complement and widen our knowledge on fishery and fish consumption on behalf of the inhabitant’s direct digestive food waste but also provides data sets for larger scaled comparisons of these specific Austrian sites.
Coprolites and fish bones from the Ljubljansko barje in Slovenia
Fish remains out of Coprolites
Alfred Galik
The presentation deals with ichthyo-archaeological remains out of coprolites from two late neolithic pile-dwelling sites (Stare gmajne and Črnelnik) in the Ljubljansko barje in Slovenia. The coprolites serve as archives for multi-proxy analysis and shed light to human–dog relationship. The digested content contains various materials such as palynological, palaeoparasitological, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological remains. However, my focus lies on the fish remains and indeed, the most probably dog coprolites contained various quite small fish remains for instance scales, bones and isolated teeth. The remains prove consumption of Cyprinids, river perch and northern pike and the remains are mostly composed of rather small and quite fragmented bones. The resumption of excavations in the settlement area in the course of a joint project (FWF I 4977 International Projects) gives hope for further coprolite finds. In addition, the fish remains from the sediment layers within the settlement will provide further important information on fishing and fish consumption in the Slovenian Neolithic.
Waterlogged finds from Mooswinkel at Mondsee in Austria
Cyril Dworski & Jutta Leskovar
The site of Mooswinkel in the lake Mondsee is a rather late discovery of a Neolithic pile dwelling in the second half of the 20th century. After its location by a sport diver, it has been investigated and surveyed in 1972 by a diving team of the Federal Monuments Office in the course of the first inventory of all underwater monuments in Austria. More than 45 years later small-scale excavations started again as part of the interdisciplinary research initiative "Zeitensprung" (Leap in Time). Outstanding, at least for Austrian lakeshore settlements, is the preservation of more than one-meter-thick cultural layers, with at least three in-situ cultural layer packages, each covered by erosional horizons. After the excavations at two sites in the lake Attersee in the previous years, Mooswinkel is now adding valuable material and data for a better understanding of the Austrian lake villages in the first half of the 4th millennium BC.
Fodder management for domestic animals: Microhistological analyses of ruminant dung
Thorsten Jakobitsch
Due to the excellent preservation of organic material under waterlogged and anaerobic conditions, prehistoric wetland settlements offer a deep insight into subsistence strategies of farming communities. The dung of ruminants like goats, sheep and cattle, which sometimes appears in a high abundance in the archaeological layers of wetland settlements, can be used for archaeobotanical studies in order to reconstruct fodder management. The case study of the late Neolithic settlement Mooswinkel at Mondsee shows the versatility of such analyses. Botanical remains in dung show that animals were fed during winter season with leaf hay and herbaceous plants which were precautionary collected in summer, with fresh green plant material from evergreen species and with catkin bearing branches of winter flowering shrubs and trees.
Fish- and other remains from Mooswinkel at the Mondsee
Dafni Nikolaidou and Alfred Galik
Fortunately, and not only from an ichthyo-archaeological point of view, a underwater research excavation is taking place at a Neolithic pile dwelling settlement with extraordinary good preservation of organic remains in Mooswinkel at the Mondsee/-lake in Upper Austria. The fish remains, which were very carefully selected from the sediment samples, provide important sources of information on fishing and fish consumption of the Neolithic settlers at Lake Mondsee. For the first time, data can now be generated in sufficient quantity and from finely applied underwater excavation methods. The various fish species can indicate the repertoire of fishing techniques such as near-shore angling or set fishing to net fishing in open water. However, in addition to the typical cyprinids, pike, perch, trout and coregonid species, large quantities of mainly frog bones were recovered. This raises the question of whether the frog remains do not also reflect part of the inhabitants' diet. The material contains numerous very well-preserved fish scales as well, which probably can be used to reconstruct the fishing season on the one hand and to estimate the age of the fish caught on the other.