Animal keeping and hunting habits of the Early Neolithic settlement of Alsónyék in the mirror of the animal bones

The area of Alsónyék lies at a meeting point of the Transdanubian Hills and the floodplain of the Danubian Sárköz riverine area in southern Hungary. In the earliest phase of the Alsónyék settlement, founded by the first farming communities of the region, the archaeozoological remains reflect a picture of meat consumption based more on domesticates and to a lesser extent on hunting and fishing. Animal husbandry of this Starčevo culture site focused on sheep and goat, and, increasingly, on cattle. Cattle keeping gained more importance at the edge of the South Transdanubian forested hills, against the dominance of small ruminants which was typical of the Early Neolithic sites in the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain.