Meat Production and Animal Sacrifice during the Urbanization of Archaic Rome

Summary

During the Archaic period (8th-6th cent. BCE), Rome underwent rapid urbanization with concomitant social changes. This shift from modest settlement to urban center affected how animals were raised, distributed, and consumed. Namely, large-scale animal sacrifice rituals within the city acted as a new mechanism for distributing meat to the masses, provided by centralized authorities. The increased scale of animal sacrifice in the nascent city would have created new meanings to these rites and led to a new demand for meat in public spaces. While transhumance and larger herds had been used for meat production in central Italy before the Archaic Period, urbanization would have shifted the supply chain towards a reliance on animals raised outside the city. This paper uses zooarchaeological data to explore the supply chain of meat production and distribution from outside of the city and peripheral zones, urban husbandry, and civic identity in early Rome.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20460