Colonising a marshy area: fishing and fishing tools in the settlement of Caraburun-Açic Suat (Northern chora of Istros)

Northward of the city of Istros lies a marshy landscape shaped by the alluvial deposits of the Danube making up the distal margins of its delta. In this compartmentalised space, which Polybius and Strabo mention, stood one of the oldest Greek settlements in the Black Sea, founded in the middle of the 7th century BC on the Cape Dolojman. Archaeological surveys carried out on the banks of the Goloviţa lagoon revealed the development of a set of secondary settlements at the beginning of the 6th century BC, the status of which still remains uncertain for the Archaic period. Nevertheless, during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, they constituted the northern chora of Istros, by which the city asserted with force its legitimacy on this vast area at the beginning of Roman times. Since 2011, one of these sites, Caraburun-Açic Suat, has been at the heart of the multidisciplinary research programme, associating the Musée du Louvre, the University of Aix-Marseille (Centre Camille Jullian), the Institute of South-East European Studies (Romanian Academy) and the Institute of Eco-museum research (Tulcea). Excavations on these sites shed a light on the economic and social strategies the Greek communities developed at the very beginning of colonisation in this specific environment where fishing activities seem to have played an important role. Through the fishing tools discovered at Caraburun-Açic Suat, this paper outlines the fishing techniques in the laguna from Archaic to Hellenistic times.