Animal bones

Over the past decade, the pace of rescue excavation work has intensified and with it the possibilites of studying many aspects of human-animal relationships in Roman Aquincum. Roman society in the provences was complex, hierarchical and multi-ethnic. The animal bones and the tools and ornaments made from them reflect this Antique reality as well. By looking at proportions of animal species and the modes of butchering it has been possible to show that the local Romanized Celtic populations living in villages in the territorium of Aquincum brought their animals into the village for slaughter, butchering and dividing the carcasses according to local traditions. In contrast, town dwellers depended on a centralized meat processing system in which animals were slaughtered away from the habitation areas, the carcasses divided and further cut-up by professional butchers to be sold in the meat markets in the macellum of the town.

While the basic source of meat and hides came, above all, from domestic animals (close to 99%). The proportion of cattle, sheep, goat, pig and chicken exploited could vary between ethnic groups. This was probably related to food traditions so that the proportion of pig in the refuse bone sample is generally lower than would normally be expected at a Roman town from this period. Perhaps this is related to the large number of soldiers coming to Aquincum from Eastern provences where there would have been a pork taboo. Other domestic animals would have included dog, cat, rabbit, horse, donkey, mule, chicken and goose. Fish, mainly carp varieties, were also eaten, although these may also have been from wild stocks.

Poorer classes of society probably had only limited access to meat. We know from the bones that they ate the meat of older animals which, reaching the end of their useful working life, were brought to market for slaughter. Wealthier patrons could afford choicer cuts of veal, lamb and piglet - and even oysters and bird tongues.

Dog and horse were never eaten. Dogs were bred as small bow-legged lapdogs and alsatian-sized hunting and guard dogs. Their bones are found scattered in Roman towns. However, we know from the absence of gnawed bones that they were not allowed to run free there. In contrast, they seem to have had free access to domestic rubbish in native villages. Horse bones are rarely found in the town although their bones may have been regularly used to make tools and ornaments. We know horse was a high status animal used by army officers. Mules and donkey bones are frequently found in the refuse of army installations and villa farms where they were important beasts of burden.

Injuries on bone from work show us that were also exploited for their draught power. Milk products from cattle as well as sheep and goat were certainly consumed. Wool was an important secondary product from sheep, although around Aquincum, wool production must have been chiefly for local consumption.

The situation at forts and the villages which grew up around them looks somewhat different. The cuts of meat suggest military rations must have consisted of dried or smoked meat aside from staple grain products, especially during winter. Wild animals including red deer, wild boar, and fish were eaten to enliven what must have been a fairly boring diet.

Furture research aims to shed further light on the use of animals for food and draught as well as sources for leather, sinew, glue, bone, horn. We want to know how these amimal resources changed in importance through the 400 year history of Aquincum and how different parts of the population used them.