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RESEARCH PRODUCT

La boucherie et les sacrifices bovins en Gaule aux IIe et Ier siècles avant notre ère

subject

description

Piles of animal bones from large domesticates – cattle and horses – have been identified on various settlement sites in Gaul ; these have undergone practices readily distinguishable from domestic butchery. Already perceptible on rural sites, these indications of a special butchery regime for cattle become more and more apparent elsewhere in tandem with the increasingly urbanised character of settlements. Cattle was also sacrificed during the Iron Age at sanctuaries, but only a small proportion of the meat produced was consumed in banquets held on site. At the Titelberg oppidum, substantial quantities of cattle bones were piled up around the sanctuaries at the end of the Iron Age and at the beginning of the Roman period. These remains provide evidence primarily for highly specialised butchery practices, whereas the sacrifice of these beasts cannot be recognised from the bones themselves. It appears that the bulk of the meat obtained in this public place was consumed within the settlement itself.