Faunal studies on byzantine city of the amorium

Bu çalışma, Antik Bizans Şehri olan Amoryum’dan seçilen hayvan kemiklerinin tanımlanmasını ve bu buluntuların türlerinin tespit edilmesini içermektedir. Ayrıca bu çalışmada Amoryum halkının hayvanları hangi amaçlar için kullandıkları ele alınacaktır. Öncelikle, yüzyılları belirlenmiş Amoryum arkeolojik alanından ele geçmiş olan hayvan kemiklerinin türleri belirlenmiştir. Tanımlanmış hayvan kemiklerinin hesaplanmasında NISP ve MNI kullanılmıştır. NISP her taxon içindeki tanımlanmış birey sayısı, MNI ise fauna içinde tanımlanmış türlerin minimum birey sayısı olarak tanımlanabilir. Bu bilgi ışığında kemiklerin mekânlara göre bulunma sıklıkları ve yoğunlukları tespit edilmiştir. Böylelikle Amoryum halkının diyetlerinde hangi hayvanları çoğunlukla tercih ettikleri saptanmıştır. Ayrıca, evcil ve yaban hayvan kullanımları dikkate alınarak toplumun tüketim alışkanlıkları da ele alınmıştır.

In this article a portion of the animal bones recovered at the Amorium excavations are presented. The materials cover the periods from the 6th -7th centuries up to Selcuk. The animal bones were examined in order to determine their species. The identified animal bones were assessed by calculating the frequencies of the each species by NISP and MNI. NISP is defined as the number of identified specimens, per taxon. MNI is also defined as the minimum number of individual animals necessary to account for some analytical specified set of identified faunal specimens. Thus, which species were the most essential for the diet could be determined. In addition to domestic animals, the wild fauna was also studied to answer the question of which species were chosen for exploitation and whether or not wild sources were of considerable portion, gathered by fishing and hunting. As a conclusion, in the shed light of this study we can assume that the Byzantine period of Amorium had rich fauna both wild and domestic species. Although usage of domestic animals is not very different from present day, to making this study is important in terms of understanding of way of life in that time periods.

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