Emerging Inequalities at Animal Farm Tracing the Symbolic Use of Cattle from the Late Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age in Southern Portugal

Abstract

The complexity of human-animal relations in later prehistory can be seen in the contrast between the symbolic use of cattle and of other species during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age in southern Portugal. From a minor symbolic pres- ence among the most common species in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic—expressed mainly in rock art representa- tions, animal burials, and rare figurines—cattle emerged with emblematic leading roles in certain funerary contexts in the Middle Bronze Age. The systematic use of cattle limb elements in Middle Bronze Age hypogea in the Serpa area (Beja district, Alentejo), and a decrease in the symbolic use of other animals, suggests a significant change in the cosmological and ideological status of several species within these communities. This study explores the possible symbolic meaning of the growing prominence of cattle within a context characterized by structural changes in several variables of the social system. In doing so, it proposes that the increased use of cattle in funerary contexts is intimately related to the construction of a new social and cosmological order, as well as to a new military atmosphere.