Etruscan Foodways and Demographic Demands: Contextualizing Protohistoric Livestock Husbandry in Northern Italy

Abstract

Domestic livestock were a crucial part of Mediterranean communities throughout later prehistory. In the first millennium BC, livestock mangement changed, and was changed by, the rise of cities in Italy. Italian prehistory has a rich zooarchaeological tradition, but investigation of the Iron Age has been regionally divided and synthetic works on the Po valley comparatively few. This article presents a pan-regional review of late prehistoric and protohistoric livestock exploitation that considers Northern and Central Italy together for the first time. Zooarchaeological comparison reveals an increase in the use of sheep/goat for secondary products, while cattle and caprines were subject to size changes that distinguish their management from that of pigs. A marked increase in pig husbandry is visible in both regions, but this shift took place earlier and more emphatically in Northern Etruscan centres than in Central Italy. After defining the main changes in animal management during the period under review, this article looks beyond population density to explore the wider environmental, economic, and cultural context of pork consumption and its relation to the development of urbanism in Etruria padana.

Fodder for Change: Animals, Urbanisation, and Socio-Economic Transformation in Protohistoric Italy

“…The expansion of pig husbandry over the first millennium BC is one of the most widely recognised zooarchaeological trends in Italian antiquity, on account of its longevity and continued association with Roman culture. Over this period, we find a dramatic increase in the percentage of pig remains recovered from archaeological sites (MacKinnon 2004;De Grossi and Minniti 2009;Minniti 2012a;Trentacoste 2016). This trend is apparent in both north and central Italy (Figure 2), and it appears to emerge in Rome and Bologna (Farello 1995;Minniti 2012a) around the eighth century BC.…”

“…In central Italy, the preferred taxon is generally pig. However, in these ritual assemblages, high frequencies of pigs allude to the location's social and economic roles, rather than reflecting population size (Trentacoste 2016). Although very different in form and dimensions, cities and sanctuaries had a shared function, as central nodes in trade/exchange networks, as well as fora for the display of wealth and social status (Frayn 1993;Nijboer 2004;Becker 2009;Potts 2015;Biella 2019).…”

“…Surplus pig production brought several benefits. Surplus animals could be used to provision traders, create cured products for market, pay debts or tribute, and incur divine favour (or social standing) through sacrifice (Trentacoste 2016). Pigs are often abundant in the same places as early economic centralisation (see Nijboer 2004;Morel 2007;Biella 2019): sanctuaries, cities, and long-distance trade hubs.…”

“…One reason that could prioritise a size increase in cattle was the need for muscle power. In Etruscan Italy, cattle were predominantly slaughtered in late adulthood, and lower limb pathologies evidence their use for traction (Trentacoste 2016). Stronger animals could work harder and exploit heavier soils, increasing the production of cereals required to feed urban centres.…”

“…Since then, scholars have been able to refine regional variation and the chronological scale of trends in northern (e.g. Riedel 1994;Trentacoste 2016;Trentacoste et al 2018 andreferences therein), central (De Grossi Mazzorin andMinniti 2009;Minniti 2012a), and southern areas of the peninsula (de Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti 2019b), including the city of Rome itself (De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti 2017). Amongst identified trends, three key patterns emerge over the first millennium BC: pigs became more abundant; cattle, sheep, and goats (but not pigs) increased in size; and the production of sheep/goat (which are difficult to distinguish in the archaeological record) shifted to emphasize secondary products (wool, and possibly milk) and young lamb.…”