Search

This paper is an essay on aviculture. It presents general information on the keeping of gallinaceous birds and waterfowl with an emphasis on the relationship between man and the avian subjects of his interest. The reasons for keeping rare decorative birds are often an economic nature. The scale of reproduction in captivity may result in the change of an ornamental species into a culinary species. The subsequent use ofa domestic animal may very well deviate from its original taming in prehistoric times, for instance from an offering to bio-industry production. The rearing of a species may also be connected with the re-stocking of shoots. Propagation of birds in captivity may ensure the survival of a species. Still the re-establishing of species in nature by means of specimens raised in confinement tends not to be very successful. The relationships between certain goose species and man is treated in greater detail and based upon observations on such birds in the author's own menagerie.

It is concluded from the uneven distribution of megalith graves (hunebedden) and the presence or absence of surface (settlement) finds in northern Drenthe that the inhabitants of the Funnel Beaker culture were not evenly distributed over the area. Habitation seems to concentrate on the highest part of the Hondsrug and less on the lands to the west. It was studied whether this habitation gradient is reflected in the human impact upon the vegetation. For this purpose sixteen pollen sites were investigated of which six gave information for the Early Neolithic. The Early Neolithic was selected by radiocarbon dating and analysed with high resolution. In the pollen analysis the role of the anthropogenic indicators throws doubt upon their value for the archaeological record. Pollen production, distribution and precipitation of Artemisia vulgaris have been studied from modern vegetation. Pollen evidence from the Early Neolithic at various elevations, ranging from three-and-halve to nine metres above Dutch Ordnance Level, demonstrate the differences in vegetation at short distances. No palynological gradient paralleling the archeological record could be found.Suggestions for prehistoric cattle keeping are compared with the management of nature reserves with primitive breeds. Alder may well have profited from the prehistoric grazing whereas birch may have suffered from it.

Refuse layers in the town of Sneek, dating from the 12th to the 17th century AD, contained pieces of eggshells. In some rare instances the tiny fragments of lapwing eggs were found in the 15-16/17th century deposits. Rubbish from a cesspit contained the fragments of a complete swan egg, which may have been eaten. Chicken eggs may have been brought in from farms outside the old town centre. The same is true for duck eggs but these may have originated also from the 'town ducks ' which were kept on the canals.Identification of the egg-producing species was achieved by measuring the thickness of the shell and comparing the outer shell structure under 81 times magnification. In addition, the colour of the shell was used as an identification trait. On several occasions it was found that half eggshells had been pushed into each other before discarding. These series of some 5-6 eggs could be a mixture of chicken and duck eggs.

Pollen assemblages dated to the Allerød oscillation in a peat sediment from Oudehaske are compared with those from other Allerød deposits in southeastern Friesland. Palynological information obtained from sediments collected from pingo scars turned out to be very identical. The information of this group of pollen sites differs from the results obtained from shallow bogs, which points to fundamental differences in Allerød vegetation around the two types of catchment sites.Measuring of birch pollen in the Allerød of Oudehaske, to separate dwarf birch from tree birch, points to a dominance of dwarf birch. Crowberry is claimed to be an indicative pollen type for the Younger Dryas, but shallow peat bogs in eastern Friesland contain important pollen percentages of this plant, suggesting that it occurred locally already in the Allerød, but not in connection with pingo scars.

The greylag was domesticated at least 4000 years ago. Even in the 19th century, greylags played a prominent role in supplying meat, feathers and down. The role of domestic grey­lags is furthermore stressed in tales and folk literature. Two other goose species, the Bean goose and white-Font, were bred for several centuries as decoys in goose netting. They were kept on the wing because they had to attract their wild relatives which were on migration. The netters used the strong family tie present in geese. Gan­ders were tied up in Font of the net while members of the family were released and would fly towards their relative. For the loose decoys to be retrieved, they had to be perfectly tame. Tests on-one-day-old descendants of such decoy families demonstrated that tameness can be se­lected for as a hereditary trait.&nbsp

The origin of the small peatbog near Yde (pro­vince of Drenthe), known from the find of a bog body (Bandel et al., this volume), was investi­gated by pollen analysis. The depression was filled in with sand during reclamation, but 70 cm of Sphagnum peat is still present in the cen­tral part. The pollen indicates that the depres­sion contained some water during the latter half of the Allerød, after which mass peat developed. The depression is definitely a pingo scar, which can be correlated palynologically with a large pingo scar 500 m to the south. The small peat­bog had completely filled with peat by the time the body was buried, about 2000 years ago.

Analysis of modern pollen precipitation is most­ly done from samples collected in moss. Moss polsters are thought to preserve pollen for a fairly long period. Thus accidental peak repre­sentation of certain species is avoided. In the absence of mosses, the upper half and one and a half centimetres of the soil in a dandelion meadow on the Es fields of Yde (province of Drenthe) and a mass polster that developed af­ter 1970 in a newly constructed ditch have been analysed for their pollen content. The pollen spectra represent a vegetation that must have grown there at least one century ago: Plaggen­wirtschaft conditions with buckwheat, cornflower, rye and heather pollen are dominant. A comparable picture is obtained from the twenty­one-year-old pollen precipitation in a farmyard at 1 km from the first samples. The samples in­form us about a past vegetation rather than about the present pollen rain. A reason may be the acid condition of the soils in such farming areas, which was caused either by the applica­tion of heather sods in the manuring system or, in the case of the farmyard, by the presence of a heather podzol, indicating former heath. The transportation of pollen of such past vegetations into modern samples was prabably done by splash water.

The reconstruction of vegetation and climate for the Late Glacial and Holocene period of northern Turkey is discussed in the light of the palynological examination of surface samples and sediment cores. Aspects of geology, geography, climate and present or natural vegetation are discussed in sections 3, 4 and 5.The modern pollen precipitation of the area is treated on the basis of 40 surface samples from natural as well as from severely degraded vegetations. An attempt has been made to explain the share of some types, including Juglans, Pistacia, Pinus, Juniperus and Plantago lanceolata in the modern pollen precipitation.Table 5 represents the time covered by the sediments sampled for this study, which originate from Abant, Yeniçağa, Melen, Küçük Akgöl (Sakarya), Adatepe (Sakarya), Seyfe, Tuzla, Demiryurt (Hafik), Büyük Gölü (Hafik), Kaz, Lâdik and Tatlı. The diagrams of Abant, Yeniçağa and Lâdik Gölü indicate that cold and dry conditions prevailed in the period from 14,000 to 10,000 BP. Artemisia and other steppic plants were dominant and a small number of trees occurred on edaphically favourable spots. The Late Glacial and its sub-phases resemble those of Europe.At the beginning of the Post glacial, forest immediately conquered the mountain ranges of northern Turkey. In the higher zone a pioneer forest of birch and maple appeared at first, to be followed by deciduous oak, hornbeam, hazeland (Nordmann) fir. Somewhat later, beech started to spread over the mountains, especially in the eastern parts (Lâdik). After 7000 BP an increase in pine is deduced from the high pollen values of this taxon.The climatic developments of this part of Turkey more closely resemble those of Europe than those of southern Turkey. Seven diagrams inform us about the impact of man during the 2nd millennium BC. The evidence tallies well with the so-called Beyşehir Occupation phase of south western Turkey.The pollen evidence pointing to human interference with the vegetation, at the altitude

The identification of living breeds of do­mestic animals is generally quite easy for the rural population. For the archaeozoo­logist, who has to rely upon finds of bones, such identification poses problems. The re­lation of the Frisian milksheep to similar breeds and suggested relatives in France is discussed together with evidence from early Flemish paintings.

In July 1992, pollen cores were taken at three locations in Anatolia. For a recon­struction of the palaeoenvironment of Sa­galassos, sediment from the Mamakova ba­sin was collected. The investigations form part of the excavation of Sagalassos (Burdur area), by Marc Waelkens from Leuven. Coring in the former crater lake Eski Acigöl, between Nevşehir and Aksaray, was extended to 15 metres. The deposit was discovered by Woldring during his stay at the Asikli exeavalian headed by Ufuk Esin. Finally, another core was taken at the edge of Lake Iznik near Çakirca, in con­nection with the exavation of Ilipinar by Roodenberg.&nbsp

Archaeological surveys and excavations in the 'Veenkolonien' in eastern Groningen have revealed the presence of remnants of frost mounds and pingo scars which date back to the Late Glacial. The organic con­tents of a pingo scar near Wildervank were investigated palynologically. The period of 12,500-10,000 BP, dated by 14C, turned out to differ in some botanical aspects from the traditional sequence as is known for the Drenthe plateau. It was concluded from the pollen diagram that a birch taiga was found in the area from c. 12,500 to 11,400 BP. Subsequently pine moved in and a rela­tively dense birch/pine pioneer forest ex­isted during the second part o f the Allerød. At around 10,725 BP, the beginning of the Younger Dryas, birches seem to decrease in number whereas pines remain constant. Crowberry appears during this period but its pollen values are lower than contem­poraneous ones from the Drenthe plateau. Permanent water in the depressions is in­dicated by green algae. A sand layer of early Halocene age covers the Late Glacial.