Roman Conquest and Changes in Animal Husbandry in the North-East of the Iberian Peninsula: Searching for Patterns, Rates and Singularities

Abstract

The conquest of the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula by the Roman Empire brought about changes to the socio-political and socio-economic organization of the communities settled in this territory. These changes, however, did not take place all at once, but rather happened throughout the 200 years following the conquest. Bearing this in mind, the aim of this article is to characterise the changes that underwent in livestock management practices in the north-eastern area of the Iberian Peninsula as a result of its Roman conquest, analysing the type and timing of these changes, and evaluating how they affected the different animal species that comprised the livestock at the time.The study of faunal remains recovered from 11 sites located in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula and dated between the fifth century BC and third century AD, and their comparison to the existing archaeozoological data for the area under study, have enabled us to document that the changes in livestock practices did not all arise at the same time and neither did they affect all taxa equally. These results are correlated with the possible roles played by both the local communities and Rome in the achievement and acceptance of these changes.