‘Animal Farm’

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the excavations carried out in the Chalcolithic contexts from the walled enclosure of Ota (Alenquer, Portugal). Six new absolute dates allow the discussion of the stratigraphical evidence and chronologically frame the zooarchaeological and taphonomical analysis of the faunal assemblage. Domesticated swine, caprine and bovine are prevalent, while wild species, most notably leporids, but also red deer, auroch and wild boar, among others, are less common. Exploitation and management of animals for the acquisition of primary and secondary products are inferred. Existing data suggests that the economic intensification that started during the previous phases was ongoing.

Another non-anthropic leporid accumulation in Southwestern Iberia? The case of a leporid sample from Morgado superior (Tomar, Portugal)

“…Southwestern Iberia Late Prehistory and Protohistory palaeoeconomy has been a matter of research in the last decades through archaeobotanical, isotopic and zooarchaeological studies. Focusing on faunal analysis, the variable importance of domesticates is observed during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, with economies mainly based on caprine and/or swine herding, as well as some cattle (recent synthesis in Valente and Carvalho 2014; Almeida et al 2020Almeida et al , 2022cAlmeida and Valera 2021). Hunting seems to have been complementary, with regional variation probably being an adaptation to local characteristics and availability.…”

Animal exploitation in Southwestern Iberia at the end of the second millennium BCE: insights from the Late Bronze Age of Outeiro do Circo (Beja, Portugal)

“…Figure 5. Histogram of results obtained for the Greatest Lateral length (GLl) of swine and bovine astragalus from the O. Circo site and other Portuguese and adjacent Spanish sites dated to the Pleistocene and Mesolithic (Detry 2007; Valente 2008, 2013), Neolithic (Almeida 2017; Davis et al 2018; Encarnação & Almeida 2017; Almeida et al 2021b), Chalcolithic (Driesch & Boessneck 1976; Cardoso & Detry 2001/2002; Castaños 1992, 1997; Rodríguez-Hidalgo & Cabezas 2011; Davis & Mataloto 2012; Moreno-García 2013; Correia 2015; Moreno-García & Sousa 2015; Aleixo 2018; Davis et al 2018;Detry et al 2020;Almeida et al 2021a;Cardoso et al 2021;Pereiro et al 2021;Almeida et al 2022), Iron and Bronze Age sites(Davis 2006(Davis , 2017a Almeida et al 2020b).…”