Animal remains may be deposited archaeologically in a great variety of circumstances, many of which must reflect their role in the domestic and agricultural economy of Iron Age communities, and result from normal disposal of the residues of butchery or consumption. In some circumstances the reason for disposal will have been death through disease or misadventure. The case of the cow in pit 61 of the phase 3 settlement at Gussage All Saints (Wainwright, 1979) that apparently died in calving is a case in point, though it is not clear why this animal was not processed for consumption, and we may suspect that an inauspicious omen was inferred that may have resulted in some special act of deposition. Ritual killing of animals, nevertheless, has been attested throughout Europe from earliest prehistory to the medieval period (Pluskowski, 2011). In reviewing animal sacrifices among the Gauls, Méniel (1992) divided the evidence into three principal categories of deposits found in habitation sites, in cemeteries, and in sanctuaires. The special character of those found on sanctuary sites, or accompanying human burials, individually or in cemeteries, is implicit from context, but animal burials that may have been deposited ritually on habitation sites are more difficult to distinguish from other forms of domestic or agricultural discard. The key problem, of course, is distinguishing ‘special deposits’ from normal butchery waste, which itself may have been disposed of in a systematic but not ritually significant fashion, a notion that was first advanced by Maltby (1985b) in the context of the Winnall Down animal remains. Despite interest generated by the Danebury project in special treatment of animal remains, the majority of faunal material from the 1985–6 excavations at Maiden Castle (Sharples, 1991a) was interpreted as the product of animal husbandry for domestic consumption or secondary products. Even in the few instances in which a possible ritual dimension was conceded, the animal remains showed evidence of butchery, involving removal of skins and flesh and disarticulation of the skeletons. Special treatment in particular may have been accorded to dogs (Smith, 2006).
New trajectories or accelerating change? Zooarchaeological evidence for Roman transformation of animal husbandry in Northern Italy