The available data are reviewed on ichthyofaunas from prehistoric sites along the Nile in Egypt and Sudanese Nubia. Former fishing practices are reconstructed using information derived from species spectra, reconstructed fish sizes, growth increment analysis and fishing implements. It is demonstrated that fishing was initially practised exclusively on the floodplain and that it was limited to a small number of shallow water taxa during Late Palaeolithic times. From the Epipalaeolithic onwards (ca 10000-8000 bp), fishing was also undertaken in the main Nile whereby the number of exploited species increased. Technological innovations allowing the exploitation of the deeper parts of the main river included nets and fish-hooks as well as improved vessels, permitting the capture of larger species from the open water. It is argued that fish must always have been a staple food because the animals seasonally occurring in large numbers on the floodplain were intensively exploited and because these fish could be easily dried for future consumption. Once the fishing grounds also included the main river, fishing was no longer restricted to the flood season, but could also be carried out when the Nile levels were low. Hence the role of fish in the resource scheduling also changed at the transition of Late Palaeolithic to Epipalaeolithic times.
The paper provides a critical review of the archaeozoological information from Ghanaian sites published up to now and summarizes the new faunal analysis of several Gonja and Asante sites. The data suggest the persistence of the use of the various wild animal resources available and limited reliance on domestic animals since late prehistoric times up to today, although certain resources such as molluscs, insects etc. may have limited or no visibility. Intensive utilisation of edible wild resources may be prevalent in African woodlands.
Faunal remains from Mahal Teglinos span the period from about 3000 to 1000 BC. They indicate that the arrival of cattle, sheep and goat in the region predates the occupation of the site, but the evidence available from other and older sites near Khashm-el-Girba does not suffice to document precisely the development of pastoralism and its consequences in the Southern Atbai. Among the limited mammalian game, the many gazelles and dikdiks point to steppe conditions, while the equally numerous buffalo remains suggest that this large bovid thrived in the seasonally inundated land along the Gash River.
HP766, discovered by the Gdansk Archaeological Museum Expedition (GAME) in the region immediately upstream the Merowe Dam in North Sudan and now under water, is one of the few palaeolithic sites with animal bone remains in the country. The archaeological deposits, the large size of the site, the lithics and the radiocarbon dates indicate occupation of a silt terrace of the Nile in late MSA and perhaps LSA times. Large and very large mammals predominate markedly among the recovered bone remains and it would seem that the palaeolithic hunters focused on such game. They could corner these animals on the site which is partially surrounded by high bedrock outcrops. Moreover swampy conditions of the site after the retreat of the annual Nile flood may have rendered less mobile the prey animals. According to this scenario, HP766 would testify to the ecological skills and generational memory of late prehistoric man in Sudan.
The town of Sagalassos, located in south-western Turkey, was an important regional centre from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity. Since the 1990s, the site has been the subject of systematic interdisciplinary research focusing on industrial, commercial, and residential areas of the town. The aim of this paper is to present the results of the excavations of two residential complexes in the town, including a palatial mansion to the north of the Roman Baths and a late antique house/shop encroaching upon the east portico of the lower agora. These housing complexes provide evidence for the living conditions of both the upper and middle classes in Late Antiquity.
Until recently, late antique quotidian objects were relegated to the domain of specialist studies and information relating to the context or assemblage within which the objects were found was rarely retained. The objects were studied as individual examples of form or type, rather than as part of an assemblage. The ability of archaeological evidence to contribute to the study of human behaviour largely derives from patterns in the dispersal of artefacts, however, and not simply from the objects themselves. A full description of the archaeological context of particular objects is thus required in order to maximise the recovery of data about the past. Contextual analysis, as it has been developed at Sagalassos, is used to identify human activities and their social and economic implications by carefully delineating the distribution of archaeological material, taking surrounding architecture and the process of context formation into account.