Archaeology and Zooarchaeology of the Late Iron Age-Roman Transition in the Province of Raetia (100bc–100ad)

Abstract

The incorporation of the region north of the Alpine divide and its foreland into the Imperium Romanum initiated major changes in economic and social structure and in everyday life in the newlyfounded province of Raetia. Controversy exists, however, about the continuity of local La Tène traditions into early Roman times, since the archaeological evidence recorded to date tends to give the impression that the northern Alpine foreland was largely unpopulated at the time of the Roman conquest in 15 BC. However, ongoing excavations in this region are gradually enhancing the archaeological visibility of this transitional phase. Compared to early Roman provincial populations settled along the Via Claudia Augusta and its hinterland, a culturally unique community stands out: the Heimstetten group. This group is located in the eastern Raetian hinterlands and dates to around 30-60 AD. Its building tradition, settlement structure, and burial customs show close affinities with the La Tène culture, thus suggesting continuity in autochthonous culture at the time of the early Roman occupation. Since faunal remains can potentially act as cultural markers, additional insights can be gained from a spatial-temporal analysis of livestock composition and breeding practices. The results presented here clearly show that, during the Iron Age, marked regional differences in species composition are visible, implying the possibility of distinct developments during early Romanization. In addition to evaluating faunal developments in the study area between c. 100 BC-100 AD, the issue of cattle breeding-traditionally the mainstay of livestock economies in many regions and especially in the Munich Gravel Plain at least since the Bronze Age-is addressed in greater detail.

Size diversity in Swiss Bronze Age cattle

“…As to the reason why small Padnal cattle suddenly appeared in the Alps, there is a possibility that they could be an introduced allochthonous population (Gaastra, ; MacKinnon, ), but it is difficult to discuss this due to the lack of the osteometric samples from Neolithic Alpine cattle. There is an alternative possibility that they could be a migrated population accompanied by migrants (Grupe et al, ) from areas outside the Swiss Alpine region, such as from the southern parts of the Alps (northern Italy and Tyrolian Austria), because the size of cattle in the southern parts of the Alps over 1,000 m above the sea level (e.g., Riedel & Tecchiati, ) is smaller than that in the northern parts (Riedel & Tecchiati, ; Stopp, ; Trixl et al, ), but homogeneous with that of Padnal cattle (Bopp‐Ito, unpublished data), indicating a similar environment and close economic relationship between Padnal and the southern communities.…”

“…Previous studies have proposed plausible factors that could have had an impact on animal morphologies and caused size variations, such as livestock diet (Breuer, Rehazek, & Stopp, ), which was linked to climate (Davis, ) or altitude (Knockaert et al, ), breeding strategies (Duval, Horard‐Herbin, & Lepetz, ; Trixl, Steidl, & Peters, ), idiosyncratic choices of husbandry (Cucchi et al, ), introduction of new animal forms (Gaastra, ; MacKinnon, ), transalpine mobility, and migration of humans together with their livestock (Grupe, Hölzl, Mayr, & Söllner, ), or selection of specific sex, such as small female cattle (Manning, Timpson, Shennan, & Crema, ). Because body size and sex are strongly correlated (Davis et al, ) and sex ratio provides a hint of cattle exploitation, computation of sex ratios of cattle populations was considered necessary.…”

New trajectories or accelerating change? Zooarchaeological evidence for Roman transformation of animal husbandry in Northern Italy

“…In Western Europe, this increase in body size has been documented in Britain (Johnstone 2004 ; Albarella et al 2008 ), France (Méniel 1984 ; Lepetz 1996 ; Forest and Rodet-Belarbi 2002 ; Frémondeau et al 2017 ; Duval and Clavel 2018 ), Belgium (Pigière 2017 ), the Netherlands (Lauwerier 1988 ), Germany (Teichert 1984 ; Groot 2017 ), Switzerland (Breuer et al 1999 ; Groot and Deschler-Erb 2015 , 2017 ), the Balearic Islands (Valenzuela et al 2017 ) and the Iberian peninsula (Altuna 1980 ; Colominas and Saña 2009 ; Colominas 2013 ; Colominas et al 2017 ). However, within continental-scale trends, evidence of diversions and different regional rhythms are also found: Portugal (Valenzuela-Lamas and Detry 2017 ; Nieto-Espinet et al 2021 ) and Rhaetia (Trixl et al 2017 ) show little change in livestock size after the Roman conquest. Zooarchaeological evidence also demonstrates that this reorganisation of animal production, although profound, was not permanent: in many areas changes to species representation, carcass processing and animal size relaxed or reversed over Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (e.g.…”

Pre-Roman improvements to agricultural production: Evidence from livestock husbandry in late prehistoric Italy

“…New methods of production are evident in changes to the species exploited and–breaking with millennia of progressive size diminution–a significant increase in the size of livestock. Although changes were not uniform [19] and exceptions occur [20–21], an increase in animal size is visible across conquered territories: France [22–24], Belgium [25], the Netherlands [26], Germany [27, 28], Switzerland [29–31], Britain [32], and Spain [12, 33]. This transformation of livestock husbandry is thought to result from the introduction of different forms of animal production [21, 34].…”

“…These trends continued to intensify during the Imperial period [40], by which point they had become a hallmark of ‘Romanisation’ in other parts of the Empire [19]. Within north/central Italy, these characteristic developments are linked to the rise of urban Etruscan and Roman culture, as marginal areas of Italy do not consistently demonstrate similar changes [20, 35, 41]. Urbanism is argued to be a primary force in catalysing changes to species frequencies, due to the functional challenges of provisioning cities with protein [37, 42, 43] and the socio-economic benefits of producing surplus animals [35].…”