Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi (Jan 2017)
Faunal Studies on Byzantine City of the Amorium
Abstract
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.
