Mesolithic Icoana revisited (II) – A reappraisal of the faunal remains

Abstract

Located in southwestern Romania in the Iron Gates Gorges, Icoana was among the sites submerged following the building of the Iron Gates I dam and hydro-power station. Eight trenches were excavated with a total area of 91m2 and a maximum depth of ca. 3 m between 1967 and 1969. According to the AMS 14C dates, Icoana saw two occupations, one between ca. 8500‒ 7600 cal BC during the Middle Mesolithic and the second during the Final Mesolithic (‘ Mesolithic-Neolithic Transformation Phase’ of some authors, ca. 6200– 5900 cal BC). In this paper, we present a revision of the Middle Mesolithic faunal remains from Icoana based on the existing collection curated at the ‘ Vasile Pârvan’ Institute of Archaeology in Bucharest.

Keywords

• iron gates
• mesolithic
• zooarchaeology
• cynophagy
• faunal remains