Animal husbandry in the British Later Iron Age: investigating economic and social change through zooarchaeology

The Later Iron Age in Britain was a transformative period: material culture, settlement patterns, technology, trade networks, and the structures of power changed, creating the conditions which attracted the attention of the Romans. In turn, the Roman conquest brought another wave of change and societal reorganization. Radical changes in the relationship between humans and domestic animals are known for the Romano-British period, while diachronic developments were much less obvious during the Iron Age, due to dating issues and less substantial material evidence. Therefore, research on the subject has so far mostly treated the Iron Age as a uniform and static continuum or focused on the subsequent impact of Romanisation. Since the relationship with domestic animals is a pervasive aspect of pre-industrial societies, this thesis argues that assessing its changes during the Later Iron Age is a fundamental step in the understanding of the British Iron Age societies. Zooarchaeological techniques, with a focus on osteometry, have been used to characterise human-animal relationships in eastern and southern Britain in this period. The increasing reliance on sheep has been linked to their use in areas where landscape features limited access to pasture and to the colonisation of new lands. The extent and pace of change indicated a broad pattern of continuity of practice, with relatively uniform livestock types and management strategies until the very end of the period. This has been discussed within the context of changes in arable farming, settlement pattern and material culture. The conservativeness of herding practices and their geographic patterning have been interpreted as signs of a successful system which promoted demographic expansion and contributed to the socio-economic developments that are suggested by the changes detected in the material evidence.