An ichthyoarchaeological survey of the ancient fisheries from the Northern Black Sea

Abstract

In the present paper, an overview of the fish remains from archaeological sites of the Northern Black Sea region in the period from the VIIc. BC to the IVc. AD is undertaken. Although the original aim of the paper was to make the pertinent Russian literature available in English, finds of fishes that were reported in English and German were incorporated into the data set in order to provide as complete and coherent a picture of the fish samples as possible. Additionally, data on the biology and features of the species that have been mentioned by all these sources were incorporated in an attempt to get a better grasp of the cultural (economic) meaning of the fish assemblages. Finally, a comparative overview was carried out in order to find hints of spatial or diachronic patterning that would explain the reasons for the onset of the industrial fishing enterprises in the area that started with the Greeks as well as points of coincidence with the industrial fisheries that developed during this time in the waters of the Iberian peninsula. Although still at a very tentative level of analysis, the data indicate that one of the major targets of such industrial fishing, the marine taxa –in particular the clupeid fishes- is lacking in material evidence. Until this sector is systematically analyzed the impression is that what we are seeing in the archaeological record are the features of a local (i.e.,non-commercial) fishery that apparently focused on brackish and freshwater species and remained essentially stable for the period under consideration.