Economic and ecological reconstruction at the Classical site of Sagalassos, Turkey, using pig teeth

Abstract

Teeth are without doubt some of the most useful structures for zoological and archaeozoological research. Their complex crown morphology renders them extremely important in taxonomic determination, since subtle differences in shape and form can exist to species level. Of the various calcified tissues present in the mammalian body, tooth enamel is also the hardest and most stable. This is extremely important for the study of fossil remains, since teeth are very resilient to many taphonomic variables. Teeth can provide many clues about an animal’s past life. They are extremely conservative in their development and growth, which progresses in a relatively well-understood chronological sequence. As a result, crown development, and tooth eruption can provide some of the most useful archaeozoological evidence for the age at death of an individual. The mouth is also the place where the initial physical and chemical breakdown of food occurs; the teeth are the means of shearing, chopping, and mastication, and as such will be affected to varying degrees by any major changes in the physical and chemical make up of ingested food. Thus, normal progressive wear on the teeth at a macroscopic level also provides a useful and widely used methodology with which to estimate the relative age at death. Tooth development is also adversely affected by a wide range of physiological factors, which can leave a number of tell-tale ‘footprints’ in the dental tissues themselves. As a result, a permanent (and chronological) record of physiological stress can be routinely reconstructed from the study of ancient teeth. All of these approaches can be used to shed further light on aspects of animal husbandry regimes in the past. This chapter deals with the pig remains excavated at Sagalassos, a Roman to Early Byzantine town in south-western Turkey. The ruins can be found approximately 7 km north of the village of Ağlasun in the province of Burdur, and 110 km to the north of Antalya. The site lies on the southern slope of the western Taurus at an altitude of between 1450 and 1600 m a.s.l., and extends over 4km2 (Waelkens 1993).