The archaeozoology of the Făgăraș fortress during the Habsburg period
The archaeozoology of the Făgăraș fortress during the Habsburg period

Summary/Abstract: The archaeozoological material discussed in this article came from one feature (Cpl. 2) located in the southern outer courtyard of the fortress investigated in the summer of 2020. The collected artefacts date mainly to the 18th and 19th centuries, therefore to the Austrian era, although some of them had been in use even earlier during the 17th century. The feature, most likely with the initial phase in the middle of the 17th century, has functioned as a latrine pit in which all sorts of remains were gradually thrown away, including faunal ones. Given that the faunal material analysed comes from a single archaeological feature, the conclusions are quite limited. Conclusions cannot be generalized, but they show a trend probably close to reality. We would like to make this clear because during the older or newer archaeological investigations, in various areas of the Făgăraș fortress, numerous animal bones were discovered, with or without a clear dating context, which could not be collected or analysed. The fauna studied in this article offers a glimpse on the diet of the human community that served the Făgăraș fortress, in general, during the Habsburg period. We observed that cattle hold an overwhelming ratio NR-wise, dominating the faunal spectrum. MNI-wise, although cattle hold second place after ovicaprids, they still have the highest importance in terms of the meat ratio, compared to other domestic animals. The game has an extremely low ratio, with medium-sized species (roe deer) and small species (hare) identified. The study of the slaughter ages and the distribution of the anatomical elements/skeletal parts in the case of the domestic animals suggest the consumption of subadult and adult animals with less tender meat, some of the animals being at the age of reform (especially the old ones) suggesting that they were part of the daily food of the fortress staff (soldiers, civilians and administration). Although not very large in terms of quantity, the importance of the sample from the Făgăraș fortress is also given by the fact that such studies of archaeozoology dedicated to the Habsburg period are extremely rare in Romania. Future archaeozoological research will certainly help us to better understand the diet of the population in the Habsburg era.

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