Who’s eating pork? Investigating pig breeding and consumption in Byzantine, Islamic and Norman/Aragonese Sicily (7th-14th c. AD)

Abstract

This paper investigates the culture of pork consumption in Sicily by examining a number of archaeological faunal assemblages dated to chronological phases spanning from the Byzantine to the Norman/Aragonese period (7th-14th c. AD). Zooarchaeological analyses reveal substantial diachronic changes in the use of the main domesticates, particularly concerning pig frequencies. In the Islamic period (9th-11th c. AD), pig is poorly represented at urban sites; this is likely to reflect a socio-cultural acceptance of the Islamic religious precepts forbidding pork consumption. By contrast, and in continuity with the Roman and Byzantine periods, pigs are well-represented in rural settlements, thus indicating a more resilient attitude of these communities toward newly imported religious traditions. In the later Norman/Aragonese period, the frequency of pig increases at some urban sites, reflecting the fact that that pork prohibition had been lifted and that new food production and consumption practices were developed. Pig continues, however, to be almost absent at a number of urban sites and castles/fortified villages; this may suggest the persistence of Islamised communities in Sicily after the end of Islamic rule.