Supplying ancient empires and medieval economies: Changes in animal husbandry between the Late Roman period and the Early Middle Ages in the Rhine Valley

Project Information

ZooRoMed

Grant agreement ID: 793221

DOI

10.3030/793221

Project closed

EC signature date 10 April 2018

Start date 15 September 2018

End date 7 August 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 175 419,60

EU contribution

€ 175 419,60

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT BASEL
Switzerland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ZooRoMed (Supplying ancient empires and medieval economies: Changes in animal husbandry between the Late Roman period and the Early Middle Ages in the Rhine Valley)

Reporting period: 2018-09-15 to 2020-09-14

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This project has investigated changes in animal husbandry between the Late Roman period and the Early Middle Ages, by comparing two different regions of the Rhine Valley: Basel Region (Switzerland) and North Rhine Westphalia (Germany). These areas were frontier regions of the Roman Empire and were later located at the core of the Carolingian Empire, making them the ideal case-studies to understand the consequences that socio-political upheavals during this transitional period had on animal husbandry practices, and the efficiency of low-input, small scale subsistence practices.
Roman husbandry practices are known to have impacted considerably on the way domestic animals were raised in the various provinces of the Empire, in relation to a high degree of specialization of economic activities. The decline of the Roman political and economic structures and the development of feudal socio-economic structures had important consequences in animal husbandry practices, mainly in relation to the end of market-oriented production, and they include a self-subsistence economy, limited livestock mobility, no genetic improvement of livestock, and changes in management practices.
The project looked at the reasons, timings, and regional variations in the response of animal husbandry practices to the socio-political changes, including the progressive diversification of the production, the decrease of livestock size, the generalization of free range feeding regimes, and the limited mobility of livestock. The project has undertaken a thorough investigation of livestock (cattle, sheep and pig) body size and shape; integrated the zooarchaeological data with stable isotope analysis; and strived to understand the chronological and regional variability of the consequences of the collapse of the Roman Empire and of the gradual process that led to the birth of medieval economies.
The results of this project show that livestock improvement continued well into the Late Roman times, despite this being a period of instability and profound changes in settlement patterns, accompanied by movements of different populations. The size of domesticates decreased only after the 6th c., and continued to do so at least until the later High Middle Ages. The size decrease affected mainly cattle, and affected less pig, which turned into the most common species in the study regions. The reasons behind the size decrease are due to a genetic change (due to a bottleneck created by the end of livestock markets), less control over feeding and breeding, and different herd sex ratios. These were an adaptation of animal husbandry to broader socio-economic transformations, in the context of a turn to a more self-sufficient, smaller scale and mixed types of agriculture.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Zooarchaeology

This project has analysed zooarchaeological data (taxonomic frequencies and biometric data of cattle, sheep and pig), dated to the Roman, early and high medieval periods, from modern-day Switzerland, central-eastern France, and Germany.
At the moment that this report was written, only the results of the analysis of the Swiss zooarchaeological dataset are published (P1). The results of the analysis of the zooarchaeological data from Germany are currently being prepared for publication in two different papers. A decrease in the size of cattle and sheep has been observed and, as for Switzerland, this decrease happened after the 6th century AD, and not before. Pig size remained similar throughout the period analysed.

Stable isotopes

Changes in feeding practices have often been suggested as a possible factor to explain the size reduction of livestock, but this has never been proven. The stable isotope analysis was designed as a pilot-study in order to look, for the first time, at changes in the diet of livestock between the Late Roman times and the Early Middle Ages. Cattle and pig bones recovered in Augusta Raurica (Switzerland) were sampled for measuring the values of δ13C and δ15N in bone collagen through EA-IRMS. The results of this pilot-study are currently being prepared for publication.

Publication
- P1: Grau-Sologestoa, I., Ginella, F., Marti-Grädel, E., Stopp, B., Deschler-Erb, S. 2021. Animal husbandry between Roman times and the High Middle Ages in central Europe: a biometrical analysis of cattle, sheep and pig. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 13: 76. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01426-w

Datasets
- Grau-Sologestoa, Idoia, & Deschler-Erb, Sabine. (2021). Zooarchaeological database of Late Roman Implenia Mühlegasse (Kaiseraugst, Switzerland). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4707459
- Grau-Sologestoa, Idoia, & Deschler-Erb, Sabine. (2021). Zooarchaeological database of early medieval Heumarkt (Cologne, Germany). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775388
- Grau-Sologestoa, Idoia, Ginella, Francesca, Marti-Grädel, Elisabeth, Stopp, Barbara, & Deschler-Erb, Sabine. (2021). A biometrical database of cattle, sheep and pig from Roman and medieval Switzerland and adjacent areas of France. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4707131

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project has compiled the largest biometric dataset of cattle, sheep and pig remains from Switzerland and Germany, most of which remained unpublished until now.
Accessible biometrical datasets are rare in zooarchaeological research and often depends on the generosity of other colleagues, as they are rarely available in Open Access. Our dataset, on the contrary, will be made completely accessible to other researchers. This will be enormously helpful for other zooarchaeologists.
In this project, for the first time, stable isotope analysis is used to investigate changes in livestock feeding practices in the transition between the Roman times and the Early Middle Ages. This project is also a rare example in which isotopes and zooarchaeology are truly integrated.
The edition of a journal special issue on the importance of the rural world as driver of socio-economic change will have important impacts in the archaeological research of this period.
The results of the project will also, hopefully, impact the way the general public and policy makers think about the rural world and about its power of resilience and adaptation.

Map showing the location of the two regions that are the focus of ZooRoMed