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REVIEW BY KATHERINE V BOYLE
This book looks at an often-overlooked aspect of European prehistory, more specifically the Neolithic/Eneolithic, but one that, fortunately, is gradually changing with work undertaken in recent years by scholars across Europe. The subject is the role in the local economy of hunting and fishing, subsistence strategies more commonly associated with the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. As a compilation of information from a range of sites across a broadly defined region (southern Europe and Anatolia), Hunting and Fishing in the Neolithic and Eneolithic provides both zooarchaeologists and material-culture specialists with a useful source of information.
However, there is one major feature of the volume that this reviewer considers to be a shame, although that inevitably reflects my own interests. It is the somewhat curtailed definition of southern Europe, with Italian and French data of similar types and periods ignored. There are, for instance, some areas of southern Europe where hunting seems to have been of some importance across a number of broadly contemporary sites (for example, in northern Italy) that are overlooked completely. But if the reader is particularly interested in south- east Europe during the Neolithic, this book is a must.
Most of the papers in the volume offer the traditional approach of listing and describing either faunal or ‘tool’ assemblages assumed to indicate hunting. In this, there is little novelty, but having the information compiled into a single source is invaluable. However, one thing that has often puzzled me is why one should accept that the artefacts all too often assumed to indicate hunting do actually point to the procurement of wild game. Is it not possible that Neolithic herders used the same tools as earlier hunters, or at least very similar ones, in order to kill tame or domestic stock? Does the Neolithic farmer immediately possess a different tool kit? When taphonomic conditions at a site are such that fauna is rare, or even absent, interpretation of artefacts (with the exception of fish hooks perhaps) as a wild-game hunting toolkit seems, to me, premature.
Overall, there is surprising lack of taphonomic consideration in some chapters, especially at sites where wild remains are rare – although there is reference to cut-marks on carnivore bones for fur, and there is some direct evidence of the hunt, or of killing of wild animals, presented, namely the recording of lesions on bones. The reasons for this direct proof, however, are often overlooked, although Martin et al. usefully point out that farmers are known to hunt in order to protect their herds as well as to obtain food and raw materials. In fact, they might also dispatch wild game in order to protect their crops. These phenomena are often ignored.
It is a shame that not all chapters provide a regional rather than individual site perspective. Some focus so much on a single site that they lose their context almost completely. And some cover only restricted types of material so that the multidisciplinarity of so much archaeology today is missing, as different material usually requires different methodologies.
Useful case studies are presented, but the lack of a concluding chapter drawing together insights from these case studies is notable. Indeed, it is unfortunate that there is no synthesis or attempt by the volume’s editors to pull together thoughts and ideas. Even the introduction is mainly a chapter-by-chapter summary of what is to come. In this, they have missed a trick: the volume is thus simply a compilation of case studies, albeit very useful ones. While it is good to know what is at specific sites, the potential of wider site, catchment, and region is not always adequately covered.
In summary, this book is to be highly recommended to readers interested in the specific sites and material covered. Those interested in a much wider perspective, geographically speaking, may be disappointed, unless the material here is of relevance for comparison – and as the importance of hunting (and fishing) during later periods of prehistory (and even history) continues to be recognised, its value for those comparisons will also increase.
Hunting and Fishing in the Neolithic and Eneolithic
Selena Vitezovic´and Christoforos Arampatzis (eds)
Archaeopress, £49
ISBN 978-1789694666
