Data on the history of fish exploitation in Hungary

István Takács and László Bartosiewicz

1. Introduction

The study of the exploitation of larger mammals has been undertaken for almost 150 years in Hungary. The first such work was published in 1859, the same year that Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species left the press (Kubinyi 1859). However, not even the systematic research following World War II fully focussed on the analysis of fish remains from archaeological sites. Apart from the widely known taphonomic problems, the lack of both specialized recovery techniques (especially water sieving) and major reference collections hampered development in this field.

As a result of using hand collection only, the overwhelming majority of fish remains are lost. Thus, fish bone assemblages from Hungary are dominated by the large bones of catfish, pike and large carp (Figure 1).

Fig.1 Catfish cleithra representing a size range typically recovered by hand collection. The specimen in the middle is that of a modern reference specimen.

The lack of fish remains, however, is not always due to poor recovery. Spectacular evidence of the massive taphonomic loss caused by dogs (and probably pigs) was found at the Roman site of Keszthely-Fenékpuszta. Stomach contents from a dog burial included a number of fish bones (Figure 2).

Fig.2 Stomach contents from a Roman period dog found at Keszthely-Fenékpuszta including small fish vertebrae (right section of picture) and gnawed bones of domestic hen.

Examples of worked fish bone are also known but these are no more representative of fishing than other bone tools are of animal husbandry (Figure 3; Choyke 1984, 58)

Figure 3: Neolithic catfish vertebra with a hole drilled through its centre
Fig.3 Neolithic catfish vertebra with a hole drilled through its centre compared with an intact specimen (right side).

The problem of identifying fish from artistic representations is typified by the case of a medieval marble relief published as the picture of a sturgeon (Khin 1957: 9). In fact, it combines the features of pike and pikeperch (Fig. 4).

Figure 4: Drawing of a 14th century red marble tombstone from Budapest - Margitsziget
Fig.4 Drawing of a 14th century red marble tombstone from Budapest - Margitsziget (Khin 1957: 16). The representation blends morphological features from at least two species, pike and pikeperch The tombstone is c. 60cm tall.

Fortunately, the primary evidence of fish exploitation, fish bones (at least within the size range of macromammalian remains) have been consistently recorded and largely identified by Sándor Bökönyi during the last three decades, even if the information thus obtained is, by definition, limited both quantitatively and from a taxonomic point of view.

Large archaeoichthyological assemblages which lend themselves to detailed statistical analysis have been published only comparatively recently (e.g. Lepiksaar and Heinrich 1977).