Methods for the examination of cattle, sheep and goat dung in prehistoric wetland settlements with examples of the sites Alleshausen-Täschenwiesen and Alleshausen-Grundwiesen (around cal 2900 BC) at Lake Federsee, south-west Germany

Kühn, Marlu; Maier, Ursula; Herbig, Christoph; Ismail‐Meyer, Kristin; Bailly, Matthieu Le; Wick, Lucia

doi:10.1179/1461410313z.00000000017

Cited by 46 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The stored drop could have been threshed in the domestic space, on a low-scale basis (for instance, using a stone or a flint knife), a first separation of the chaff could have been done manually and used as isolating material and the final winnowing could take place just before consumption. Otherwise, if threshing and winnowing had taken place on a larger scale, the chaff would have most likely been kept aside and used for animal foddering (for recent investigations on the use of chaff -and grain -to feed livestock see, for instance, Kühn et al 2013). The information on the conditions of growth of the plants is minimal due to the scarcity of charred weeds and the difficulties of determining their nature as weeds.…”

Section: The Archaeobotanical Analyses: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated perspective on farming in the early Neolithic lakeshore site of La Draga (Banyoles, Spain)

Antolín

Buxó

Jacomet

et al. 2014

Environmental Archaeology

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A combined analysis of the faunal and charred plant macroremains from the early Neolithic lakeshore site of La Draga (Banyoles, Spain) is presented. The aim was to characterise the farming strategies practiced by the first Neolithic communities in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula in terms of their degree of intensity. The joint discussion of the data allowed the observation that permanent plots could have been kept, that a high harvest would have been practiced and that a low-scale processing of the crop could have taken place within the domestic space, where the grain would be stored. This type of crop husbandry would permit the livestock to access the fields and graze the stubble, which would result in the manuring of the plots. Herds were kept close to the dwellings and different management and consumption practices were observed between the larger and the smaller animals. Smaller animals were probably produced and consumed at a household scale while larger animals would require a cooperative management and consumption. It is concluded that the available evidence points towards an intensive mixed farming model. La Draga: a unique case in the early Neolithic of the Iberian PeninsulaThe settlement of La Draga is located on the eastern side of the Lake of Banyoles (Banyoles, Spain), at 170 m asl (Fig. 1). The surface of the site is thought to be around 8000 m 2 . It most probably stretched for over 100 m along the lake shoreline and around 80 m inland (Bosch et al. 2000, 24;Tarrús 2008).It was discovered in 1990. Four areas were excavated to date (Fig. 1): sector A, of approximately 284 m 2 ; sector B, of 126 m 2 ; sector C, of 310 m 2 ; and sector D, of 56 m 2 . Sectors B, C and D remained under waterlogged conditions since the Neolithic period and excellent conditions of preservation of the archaeobiological record were possible. The excavated sectors B and D are the only areas for which a combined analysis is possible, since they are side by side (Fig. 1). The stratigraphy of sectors A and C was not fully correlated with the rest of the site.After the recent excavations of sector D, two early Neolithic settlement phases were distinguished.

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Section: The Archaeobotanical Analyses: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated perspective on farming in the early Neolithic lakeshore site of La Draga (Banyoles, Spain)

Antolín

Buxó

Jacomet

et al. 2014

Environmental Archaeology

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“…the Sihldelta in close vicinity to Zurich-Mozartstrasse) would result in low δ 13 C values of domestic cattle bone collagen samples. Several authors outlined that domestic cattle management and feeding practices were highly elaborated, and seasonally differing strategies are likely Ebersbach, 2002;Kühn et al, 2013). One of these strategies to consider is leaf foddering in winter.…”

Section: Implications For Herding Strategies Based On Domestic Cattlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, winter leaf foddering as a potential feeding strategy of domestic cattle in southern Scandinavia was discussed in line of the elm decline at the Atlantic-Subboreal transition (Noe-Nygaard et al, 2005), where the authors did not see any indications of leaf foddering on the basis of their isotopic data set. Irrespective of the potential of C isotopic measurements to gain constraints on winter leaf foddering, dung analyses can provide independent evidence for such feeding strategies, as has been shown for small and large ruminants at several wetland sites in Switzerland (Kühn et al, 2013). One example is the settlement Wetzikon-Robenhausen, canton Zurich, another one is Thayngen-Weier II, canton Schaffhausen, where some of the excavated buildings have been interpreted as stables, although this is a matter of debate (Ebersbach, 2002).…”

Section: Implications For Herding Strategies Based On Domestic Cattlementioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape opening and herding strategies: Carbon isotope analyses of herbivore bone collagen from the Neolithic and Bronze Age lakeshore site of Zurich-Mozartstrasse, Switzerland

Doppler

Gerling

Heyd

et al. 2017

Quaternary International

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Carbon isotope analysis (δ 13 C) was performed on collagen extracted from 54 domestic cattle (Bos taurus) and 20 red deer (Cervus elaphus) bones from the Neolithic (3913-2586 BC) andBronze Age (1950-950 cal. BC) layers of the lakeshore site Zurich-Mozartstrasse located in the lower Lake Zurich basin, Switzerland. We observed shifts in the δ 13 C of both domestic cattle and red deer over two millennia. Mean δ 13 C values of red deer changed from -24.1 ± 0.7‰ to -22.5 ± 0.3‰, while mean δ 13 C values of domestic cattle showed minor changes from -22.7 ± 1.3‰ to -22.1 ± 0.3‰. Our data suggest that in the early 4 th millennium BC the landscape was densely forested with red deer feeding in closed habitats and cattle grazing in more open landscapes. Forest was also a food resource for some young cattle as indicated by the lower δ 13 C values of non-adult relative to adult animals. This points to a greater diversity of herding strategies and feeding techniques compared to the later periods. The landscape was still rather forested towards the mid-3 rd millennium BC, with no obvious changes in the habitat use of the large herbivores. However, the carbon isotopes suggest a clearly reduced forest cover in the 2 nd millennium BC with red deer using similar open feeding grounds as domestic cattle. Our study demonstrates that the stable carbon isotope composition of © 2015. This manuscript version is made available under the Elsevier user license http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ archeological bone material from large herbivores can provide integrative constraints on paleoenvironmental and vegetation changes, prehistoric animal management and land-use.

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“…Archaeological layers of lake-shore pile-dwelling sites are always composed of a variety of components derived from human and animal activity (Jacomet et al, 2004). Well preserved coprolites (fossil excrement remains) can often be found as well (Byrne, 1973;Akeret & Jacomet, 1997;Kühn et al, 2013). They are found whole or fragmented, uncarbonised and from various animals such as mice, sheep/goats, cattle, dogs etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Goat and sheep faeces have been investigated relatively often because they are compact and, therefore, are not always destroyed by sieving (Akeret & Jacomet, 1997;Akeret et al, 1999;Kühn et al, 2013). Cattle dung is often a mixture of faeces, stable litter, fodder and material that had nothing to do with cattle management (Kühn et al, 2013). Not so often, but randomly, dog or human coprolites can be found as well, when the excavation is careful and precise (Byrne, 1973).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Study of Dog Coprolite from Late Neolithic Pile-Dwelling Site in Slovenia

Tolar¹,

Galik²

2019

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More than 5000 years old dog's coprolite was found during rescue excavation at Črnelnik pile-dwelling site in Slovenia. Although human and dog diets may overlap considerably, the content of the consumed and digested food, consisting of plant and/or animal remains biologically diverse. While the investigated fossil excrement contained many fish head bones, scales and teeth of Cyprinidae family, we believe that we are dealing with an individual that had only eaten fish heads, that is why it was suggested to be of dog. Beside the origin and the daily diet of the individual together with the nutritional habits of the dog in the Late Neolithic, the analyses of coprolite provide more important information, for example: the time of year of the deposit, the environmental conditions there, the size and the health of the animal as well as care (or the status) of domesticated animal for humans. The discovery confirms again that animal dung should be an important part of archaeological investigations, specially at waterlogged sites.

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Methods for the examination of cattle, sheep and goat dung in prehistoric wetland settlements with examples of the sites Alleshausen-Täschenwiesen and Alleshausen-Grundwiesen (around cal 2900 BC) at Lake Federsee, south-west Germany

Cited by 46 publications

References 13 publications

An integrated perspective on farming in the early Neolithic lakeshore site of La Draga (Banyoles, Spain)

An integrated perspective on farming in the early Neolithic lakeshore site of La Draga (Banyoles, Spain)

Landscape opening and herding strategies: Carbon isotope analyses of herbivore bone collagen from the Neolithic and Bronze Age lakeshore site of Zurich-Mozartstrasse, Switzerland

A Study of Dog Coprolite from Late Neolithic Pile-Dwelling Site in Slovenia

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