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THE ARCHAEO+MALACOLOGY GROUP NEWSLETTER Issue
Number 4, August 2003 Coordinator: Janet Ridout Sharpe, BSc ARCS 66 Radnor Road, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 0PH, UK email:
j.ridout-sharpe@cabi.org
Editorial Due
to a pending change in my circumstances when I retire next March (which I hope
will give me more time to devote to archaeomalacology), the next issue of the
AMG Newsletter will probably be the last that will be distributed by email.
Instead, plans are underway to post future issues on a website, where,
theoretically, the Newsletter will become freely accessible to all. This will be
good news with regard to the promulgation of archaeomalacology, but it does have
implications regarding data protection. I hope that this will not discourage
people from continuing to submit contributions for the Newsletter, but please
let me know in future if you would prefer to have your postal and/or email
addresses withheld. Any comments on the website proposal, or other ideas for
disseminating the Newsletter, will be welcome.
The
next issue of the Newsletter, which is scheduled for January 2004, will contain
details of the intended changes. This will be sent out by email as now but will
(hopefully) also appear on a website. My intention is to continue to produce the
Newsletter at six-monthly intervals, so please keep those contributions - short
articles, research in progress, requests for information, news, conference
notices and reports, publications, etc. - coming in! Please remember to let me
know if you change your email address (or you won't receive the next issue) and
also please let me know if you want your name to be removed from the membership
list. Until further notice, my email address (given above) remains the same.
(JRS)
People Chris BARNHART: chrisbarnhart@smsu.edu Professor
of Biology at Southwestern Missouri State University; working on eco-physiology
and conservation biology of land and freshwater molluscs, particularly
Unionidae; interested in the use of shells to infer growth patterns and
ecological influences on growth. Websites:
http://courses.smsu.edu/mcb095f/home/ and http://unionid.smsu.edu. Arthur BOGAN: arthur.bogan@ncmail.net Curator
of Aquatic Invertebrates at the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences;
working on the distribution and a worldwide phylogeny of Unionoida;
long-standing interest in the role of land and freshwater molluscs in
archaeology; has worked on freshwater bivalves from archaeological sites in the
southeastern USA, also terrestrial and freshwater gastropods from archaeological
and Pleistocene sites in Yemen. Matthew COLLINS: m.collins@ncl.ac.uk Member
of the Ancient Biomolecules Group at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne;
interested in protein degradation within mollusc shells, specifically amino acid
racemization (the accumulation of non-biological D-amino acids in shells as a
function of time and temperature); has investigated racemization in
archaeological shell middens in Portugal and Denmark and (under contract) shells
from Palaeolithic cave sites, hoping to develop ways to explore the stratigraphy
of middens and to estimate accumulation rates. Website: http://nrg.ncl.ac.uk/research/resareas/ancient-biomols.html. Vesna DIMITRIJEVIC: vesnadim@beotel.yu Working
at the Faculty of Mining and Geology, Institute of Regional Geology and
Palaeontology in Belgade; interested in Quaternary faunas, especially
Pleistocene mammals from cave deposits, and animal remains from archaeological
sites, mostly Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic; working on shell objects
from Neolithic sites in Serbia. Burcin Askim GUMUS: burcinaskim@hotmail.com Doctoral
student from Isparta, Turkey, working on the distribution of Clausiliidae in
Western Anatolia; interested in the artificial dispersal of land snails by human
agencies in the past, including Neolithic trade routes in Turkey. Laura KOZUCH: lkozuch@uiuc.edu Is
now Curator at ITARP, University of Illinois, and has changed her email address
as shown. Dan MARELLI: dmarelli@adp.fsu.edu Invertebrate
Biologist and Coordinator of the Academic Diving Program at Florida State
University; interested in the ecology, systematics and evolution of marine and
brackish-water bivalves, especially the biogeographical history of the
Dreissenidae and the recent history of Argopecten
populations in the Gulf of Mexico, including evidence from archaeological
deposits. Nigel THEW: Nigel.Thew@ne.ch Working
on terrestrial and freshwater molluscs in Switzerland from both archaeological
and natural Quaternary deposits; special interests include the development of a
molluscan biostratigraphy for western Switzerland and adjoining areas that could
be useful as a stratigraphic and relative dating tool; also interested in
molluscs from archaeological deposits as a means of reconstructing local
environments; working on freshwater molluscs including Pisidium
as a method for estimating past lake/water levels. Jesse TODD: JesseAntTodd@aol.com Owns
MA Consulting which analyses both terrestrial and aquatic molluscs from
archaeological sites, mainly in north-central Texas; working as an archaeologist
for AR Consultants, Inc. based in Dallas; interested in palaeoenvironmental
reconstruction as well as diet based on information derived from shells and
shell middens; also interested in sphaeriiacean clams. Jim WILLIAMS: jim_williams@usgs.gov Working
at the Center for Aquatic Resources Studies, US Geological Survey, at
Gainesville, Florida; interested in unionid biology, conservation and
zoogeography; studying freshwater mussels from archaeological sites to determine
changes in distribution and relative abundance. Ref:
Williams, J.D. and Fradkin, A., 1999. Fusconaia
apalachicola, a new species of freshwater mussel (Bivalvia: Unionidae) from
precolumbian archaeological sites in the Apalachicola Basin of Alabama, Florida,
and Georgia. Tulane Studies in Zoology and
Botany 31 (1): 51-62.
Requests for information From
David Lubell: I
am collecting data and information on Late Pleistocene and Holocene sites in
which land snails can be shown to have been a part of the human diet. I am
primarily interested in the circum-Mediterranean region, but would also
appreciate information from other parts of the world. I already have reasonably
good data for most of the following: Maghreb, Cantabria, eastern Pyrenees,
southern France (too numerous to list); Cyrenaica (Haua Fteah); Italy and Sicily
(Grotta dell'Uzzo, Grotta di Levanzo, Grotta della Madonna, Grotta di Pozzo and
Grotta Continenza); Balkans, Greece, Aegean, Anatolia (Badanj, Kopaina, Pupiina,
Crvena Stijena [data needed], Foeni-Salas, Franchthi, Cyclope, Maroulas and
Okuzini); Near East (Zawi Chemi Shanidar, Shanidar, Jarmo, Asiab, Gerd Banahilk,
Karim Shahir, Nemrik 9, Palegawra, Tepe Sarab and Warwasi); Levant (Djebel
Kafzeh, Hayonim, Erq el-Ahmar, Mugharet ez-Zuitina, Ein Gev and Ksar 'Aqil).
Please respond by email to: dlubell@ualberta.ca or by post to: David Lubell,
Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB T6G 2H4, Canada.
Many thanks. From
Janet Ridout Sharpe: I
am currently working on a shell assemblage from a Bronze Age tell site on the
Upper Euphrates in northern Syria, not far from ancient Carchemish. The bulk of
the assemblage consists of freshwater mussels (Unionidae): could anyone please
tell me what species I might expect from this site, and, if possible, how to
distinguish them by shell characters? Many thanks. Email address:
j.ridout-sharpe@cabi.org.
What can we learn from a second look at the shells
from the excavation of Mit Rahena, Egypt? Henk K. Mienis National Mollusc Collection. Department of Evolution, Systematics & Ecology Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IL-91904 Jerusalem, Israel (mienis@netzer.org.il) In
1987 an excavation was carried out at Mit Rahena, on the west bank of the river
Nile at Badrashien-Giza, 22 km west of Cairo. This site is part of the famous
ancient capital city Memphis. The archaeozoological remains, consisting of
shells and vertebrate bones, recovered during the excavation, were published in
a 64-page paper in a highly specialized academic journal in an East European
country.
The original
author referred in the archaeomalacological section of that article to two
encyclopaedic works (Dance, 1974 and Anonymous, 1982) and four general textbooks
(Moore et al., 1952; Moore and Pitrat,
1960; Moore and Teichert, 1969a-b)*, but not to any specific works dealing with
the molluscan fauna of Northwest Africa, the Mediterranean or the Red Sea. The
unfortunate choice of literature to identify the material has led to some
embarrassing misidentifications, which are rectified in this short note on the
basis of the photographs illustrating the species in the original article. Revised
identifications Family
Viviparidae: Bellamya unicolor (Olivier,
1804) The
illustrated specimens (p. 7: text-figure), identified as either Littorina
coccinea: a littoral gastropod which has a distribution from the eastern
Indian Ocean to deep into the Pacific Ocean, or Littorina fasciata: a related species from the west coast of Central
and South America (!), do not represent marine periwinkles but a common
freshwater snail living in the Nile. Family
Cypraeidae: Erosaria spurca (Linnaeus,
1758) The
figured specimen (p. 9: text-figure), identified as Cypraea
ventriculus, does not depict that
rare cowry species which has a restricted distribution in the central Pacific,
but a common Mediterranean species. Family
Muricidae: Bolinus brandaris (Linnaeus,
1758) The
photographs (p. 8: text-figures) of the Murex
species have been inverted and show a sinistral species. They were taken from a
worn purple dye murex missing the long siphonal canal. This species occurs
commonly in the Mediterranean Sea. Family
Glycymerididae: Glycymeris insubrica (Brocchi,
1814) This
(p. 10: text-figures) has been correctly identified, but G.
violascens is a wrong spelling for G.
violacescens, a junior synonym of G.
insubrica. It is a common Mediterranean species. Family
Mutelidae: Chambardia rubens arcuata (Cailliaud,
1823) The
illustrations (p. 12: text-figures and p. 13: photo 9) show clearly several
damaged valves and fragments of the large pearly freshwater mussel living in the
Nile, which has been known until recently as Aspatharia
rubens. This mussel has indeed the general form and outline of marine
bivalves belonging to the genus Lutraria,
in particular that of L. lutraria, but
it lacks the characteristic large resilifer, an internal ligament set in a deep
socket, of the latter. In addition the interior of Chambardia always shows a layer of nacre, which is never the case in
Lutraria. Family
Corbiculidae: Corbicula consobrina (Cailliaud,
1823) The
photographs (p. 11: text-figures) do not represent Dosinia
elegans, a southeast United States to Caribbean marine bivalve, but a common
freshwater species from the Nile. Discussion
and Conclusion According
to the identifications supplied by the original author one may reach the
conclusion that the shell material recovered during the excavation at Mit Rahena
had been imported from all corners of the world: Mediterranean Sea, southeast
United States and/or Caribbean, west coast of Central and South America, central
Pacific and the Indo-Pacific. Although the ancient Egyptians were known as keen
seafarers, as far as we know they never crossed any oceans! A revision of
the identifications shows that the material came in fact from two nearby areas
only: the river Nile (Bellamya unicolor, Chambardia
rubens arcuata and Corbicula
consobrina) and the Mediterranean Sea (Erosaria
spurca, Bolinus brandaris and Glycymeris
insubrica).
The large
differences in the specific identifications are due to a wrong choice of
literature. When one studies the shells of an archaeological site somewhere in
the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind that the majority of the shells
will have originated from three, sometimes four, areas: marine molluscs come
either from the Mediterranean or the Red Sea, while terrestrial and freshwater
molluscs are usually from the vicinity of the site or from somewhere else in the
Middle East (a good example of the latter is the large freshwater mussels from
the Nile which are often found at archaeological sites throughout the Levant).
In
the case of the molluscs found at Mit Rahena, it is noteworthy that all the
shells could have been identified correctly with the help of various
malacological monographs published during the 20th century by the Institut Égyptien
in Cairo. * The bibliographic references in the original article are inaccurate and have been corrected below. References Anonymous, 1982.
The MacDonald encyclopedia of shells.
512 pp. MacDonald and Co., London and Sydney. Dance, S.P., 1974.
The collector’s encyclopedia of shells.
288 pp. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, St. Louis, San Francisco and
Toronto. Moore, R.C., Lalicker, C.G.
and Fischer, A.G., 1952. Invertebrate
fossils. 766 pp. McGraw-Hill, New York, Toronto and London. Moore, R.C. and Pitrat, C.W.
(eds.), 1960. Treatise
on invertebrate palaeontology, Vol. 1: I-XXIII and 1-351. Geological Society
of America and University of Kansas Press. Moore, R.C. and Teichert, C.
(eds.), 1969a. Treatise
on invertebrate palaeontology, Vol. 6 (1): I-XXXVIII and 1-489 pp.
Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press. Moore, R.C. and Teichert, C. (eds.), 1969b. Treatise on invertebrate palaeontology, Vol. 6 (2): 491-952. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press.
Molluscan
studies at Wessex Archaeology, UK Michael
J. Allen Wessex
Archaeology, Portway House, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury SP4 6ED, UK (m.allen@wessexarch.co.uk) Archaeomalacological
research at Wessex Archaeology is wide-ranging and includes the study of both
land and freshwater snails for environmental reconstruction and the analysis of
marine molluscan assemblages to further our knowledge of ancient economies and
diet.
Land
snails (and freshwater and brackish snails) from Holocene samples are used to
reconstruct past landscape ecologies and human land-use. Some of these studies
can be relatively large scale and some are huge. A project nearing completion
has involved the sampling of 21 sites over the past five years, the processing
and analysis of 397 samples, representing some 640 kg of sediment to 500
<micro>m, and the extraction and identification of 172,620 snails
(excluding Cecilioides acicula) and
excluding the last four samples which are still in progress. All the samples are
from a small Dorset landscape and cover the period 5000 BC to 100 BC (Allen,
1999; Allen, 2000; Allen, 2002). This is thought to represent the largest single
land snail study to be carried out in northwest Europe. Processing, extraction
and some identification is conducted by Sarah Wyles (Environmental Supervisor,
WA), and analysis and reporting is conducted by Mike Allen (Environmental
Manager, WA).
The
analysis of marine assemblages from archaeological sites has centred primarily
on oysters (following the concepts defined by Winder), to examine substrate
type, farmed versus natural colonies, the location of ancient oyster beds around
the British coastline, and ultimately diet and the status and economy of the
archaeological site. A recent study has been the marine molluscan assemblage
from Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight (Wyles and Winder, 2000). Analysis
and reporting is conducted by Sarah Wyles. References Allen, M.J., 1999. A note on reconstructing the prehistoric landscape environment in Cranborne Chase; the Allen Valley. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 120: 39-44. Allen, M.J., 2000. Soils, pollen and lots of snails. In: Green, M.A. (ed.), Landscape revealed; 10,000 years on a chalkland farm, pp. 36-49. Stroud, Tempus. Allen, M.J., 2002. The chalkland landscape of Cranborne Chase; a prehistoric human ecology. Landscapes 3: 55-69. Wyles, S.F. and Winder, J., 2000.
Marine Mollusca. In: Young, C.J. (ed.), 2000 Excavations at Carisbrooke Castle,
Isle of Wight, 1921-1996. Wessex Archaeology Report No. 18: 185-188.
Publications received La
Conchiglia This
quarterly publication from Italy has an international appeal for those
interested in the marine Mollusca, including archaeomalacologists. Since 1995
the magazine has been published in two separate editions, English and Italian,
which are identical in content.
The
issue for January-March 2003 (volume 35, number 306) includes an article
entitled 'Seashells from archaeological complexes of antique Crimea (Tauride)'
by Igor Bondarev, writing from Sebastopol, Ukraine. Exotic imports, such as Murex
brandaris [=Bolinus brandaris]
from the Mediterranean which is found in funerary contexts from the 1st century
BC to the 5th century AD, provide evidence for widespread trade. This extended
at least as far as the Red Sea because Cypraea
pantherina is an occasional find in 1st-3rd century AD Scythian burials; one
tomb yielded a remarkable series of disks cut from Strombus tricornis and Lambis
truncata which had been threaded onto an iron rod. Other artefacts from the
area include gold and silver pendants and containers modelled on scallop shells.
Topics
covered by other articles in this issue include Spondylidae from the Italian
Pliocene, new distribution records and descriptions of new species. The magazine
also includes news items, book reviews and correspondence. Further information
and subscription details may be obtained from the Editor, Maria Antonietta
Fontana Angioy (email: mafa@evolver.it). Morphometric
analysis of limpets from an Iron-Age shell midden in northwest Portugal This
is the title of a paper by Joao Paulo Cabral and Armando Coelho F. da Silva,
published in the Journal of Archaeological
Science 30 (2003): 817-829.
A 1st century
BC-1st century AD (Roman period) shell midden from the Terroso hillfort yielded
684 well-preserved Patella shells. The shells were identified and compared with modern
examples from two nearby coastal localities. The relative abundance of Patella
species in the midden (dominated by P.
vulgata) was different from modern populations (dominated by
P. intermedia). Shell length range and variability in the midden shells were
lower than in modern shells. Log height versus length plots were also different,
with the midden shells significantly taller than modern examples. These
differences could be attributed either to environmental changes resulting from a
rise in mean sea level from 2000 BP to the present, or to collecting strategies:
the midden shells could have been selected by size and collected preferentially
at high shore level and in sheltered sites.
Joao Cabral is based at the University of Oporto and may be contacted by email at jpscabral@hotmail.com.
Postscript: archaeomalacology - or malacoarchaeology? A
re-read of Tony Legge's thought-provoking essay on the role of zoological
disciplines within the larger field of archaeology (Legge, 1978) has prompted a
reconsideration of the terms we use as molluscan specialists. Following Legge's
premise, 'archaeomalacology' simply implies 'old malacology' and there is
already an adequate term for this in palaeontology. The alternative,
'malacoarchaeology', puts the animals first with the concomitant danger that
they will remain first in the mind of the specialist.
The
point being that neither term is satisfactory and the specialist must never lose
sight of the archaeological aim of furthering knowledge of human
activity rather than just the palaeoecology of the species concerned. The
study of molluscan material in isolation from other data is a limited approach:
the specialist only provides the information that he/she sees as relevant,
whereas the aim of the exercise should be to solve problems. A set of testable
hypotheses should be formulated before analysis begins otherwise little more
than a species list may be produced. In the absence of archaeological
objectives, the specialist may work only within a broadly-defined culture
concept with the result that his/her report 'is rendered a self-fulfilling
prophecy'. The specialist must therefore be at least part archaeologist. A foot
in both camps is essential if the interdisciplinary approach is not to result in
a site report consisting of a collection of quite separate essays, each
representing the interests and priorities of the various specialists involved,
with little overall advance in archaeological knowledge. (JRS) Reference Legge, A.J., 1978. Archaeozoology - or zooarchaeology? In: Brothwell, D.R. et al. (eds), Research problems in zooarchaeology. Occasional Publication, Institute of Archaeology, No.3: 129-132.
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