Shechita and Kashrut: Identifying Jewish populations through zooarchaeology and taphonomy. Two examples from Medieval Catalonia (North-Eastern Spain)

Abstract

Diet is a key element of cultural identity, especially when it conveys religious practices. A multivariate study of two zooarchaeological assemblages from Medieval Catalonia (North-Eastern Spain) is described here. The combination of several criteria regarding the presence of species, the skeletal part representation and the butchery pattern, converge towards a Jewish origin of the faunal remains. These two assemblages constitute one of the few opportunities for characterizing the diet of the Medieval Jewish communities in Spain, and for comparing it to contemporary Muslim and Christian populations.