Freshwater fishing at the Neolithic site of Rakushechny Yar

Abstract

The multilayer settlement site of Rakushechny Yar is located at the northwestern end of an island on the Lower Don River, Rostow region, Russia. It is one of the earliest Neolithic sites in the region, dating from the 7th to the 6th millennia cal BC. During the excavation of the settlement, numerous fish remains were found. To gain an impression of the fish species caught, the largest assemblages, recovered during recent excavations, from the Early Neolithic layers and one pit dated to the middle of the 6th millennia cal BC were analysed. The fish remains were quantified and total fish lengths were estimated. This revealed the relative importance of particular species, with wels catfish (Silurus glanis) being especially well‐represented, and additionally provided insight into the possible fishing methods employed and season of capture. The data demonstrate that the assemblage was dominated by the remains of freshwater species that could have been fished in the Lower Don River nearby. The spring and summer seasons were probably the most favourable time for capture, although fishing could also have been conducted throughout the year.

Neolithic farmers or Neolithic foragers? Organic residue analysis of early pottery from Rakushechny Yar on the Lower Don (Russia)

“…Therefore adult anadromous fish, having fed mainly in the marine environment, maintains a relatively enriched δ 13 C signature even when caught up-river (McCarthy and Waldron 2000 ). Sturgeons are the third most represented species in the fishbone assemblage (Zabilska-Kunek 2019 ). Conversely, pots with relatively depleted 13 C are more in keeping with freshwater fish such as cyprinids ( Cyprinidae) and Wels catfish ( Silurus glanis ), constituting the major part of the fish remains in Rakushechny Yar (Zabilska-Kunek 2019 ), or even juvenile sturgeon which would still provide a more freshwater signal (Doucett et al 1999 ).…”

“…Based on the observation of typical morphological traits (Esmaeili et al 2007 ), these are believed to belong to members of the cyprinid family (e.g. common bream, Abramis brama , carp, Cyprinus carpio , asp, Aspius aspius or tench, Tinca tinca ) widely present in the archaeological fish bone assemblage at the site (Zabilska-Kunek 2019 ). In contrast to cyprinids, the other types of fish recovered from the archaeological record at Rakucheshny Yar, such as Wels catfish and sturgeon, have scale-less bodies.…”

“…The data are compared with reference ranges for authentic reference lipids from modern tissues from published studies (Dudd 1999;Spangenberg et al 2006;Outram et al 2009;Craig et al 2011Craig et al , 2012Craig et al , 2013Taché and Craig 2015;Pääkkönen et al 2016Pääkkönen et al , 2020Lucquin et al 2016b;Choy et al 2016;Courel et al 2020) and additional new Unio and Viviparus shellfish data from the Low Don River and freshwater fish and ruminants from Russia (95% confidence; Table S2). To allow comparison with the archaeological samples from the Holocene period, the δ 13 C values of the modern samples were adjusted given the variation in the atmospheric δ 13 C resulting from post-industrial carbon according to the known or estimated year of death of the animal (Hellevang and Aagaard 2015) assemblage (Zabilska-Kunek 2019). Conversely, pots with relatively depleted 13 C are more in keeping with freshwater fish such as cyprinids (Cyprinidae) and Wels catfish (Silurus glanis), constituting the major part of the fish remains in Rakushechny Yar (Zabilska-Kunek 2019), or even juvenile sturgeon which would still provide a more freshwater signal (Doucett et al 1999).…”

“…Unio spp. and Viviparus diluvianus ) (Belanovskaya 1995 ; Zabilska-Kunek 2019 ), provided the majority of resources (Fig. 2 ).…”

The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers

“…The majority of sites are settlements represented by various pits, platforms, artefact scatters and other ephemeral structures, often located close to major rivers or their tributaries 12 . Faunal and botanical analyses have shown that a broad spectrum of hunted, gathered and fished resources was exploited across the study area [13][14][15] .…”