Behind the steps of ancient sheep mobility in Iberia: new insights from a geometric morphometric approach

Abstract

In Western Europe, the transition from the middle Iron Age to the early Roman period implied changes in livestock practices, with the emergence of a specialized and selective animal husbandry. These changes have been related in Italy and south of France with changes in livestock management involving their mobility between ecologically complementary areas. The study of this question in the Iberian Peninsula has only been partially investigated through palaeoenvironmental analyses, and the information about the origin and significance of this phenomenon is very scarce. To shed new light on this topic we used an archaeozoological approach, with the application of geometric morphometrics. They were used to study size and shape variability in sheep astragali from 9 sites dating from the middle Iron Age to the early Roman period (5th c. BC-3rd c. AD) and located on the Pyrenees and on the north-eastern Iberian coast as a case study. The results we obtained, combined with Number of Identified Specimens (NISP) and kill-off patterns, showed local specificities in terms of breeding methods and sheep morphologies between the two areas during the middle Iron Age. On the contrary, sheep with similar size and the implementation and development of similar sheep husbandry practices in the Pyrenees and the north-eastern Iberian coast were documented during the early Roman period. These results suggest the existence of livestock links between these two areas during the Roman period, that could be involved a possible movement of sheep between the lowlands and the Pyrenees for the first time.

Specialized wool production economy of prehistoric farmstead of Chap I in the highlands of Central Tian Shan (Kyrgyzstan)

“…Case studies from the mountain and lowland sites of Iron Age–Roman period Spain demonstrated a gradual change towards specialized economies, which involved increased focus on exploitation of sheep/goats and production of wool (Colominas, 2011; Colominas, 2013; Colominas, 2017). Geometric morphometric analysis conducted on the sheep astragali from the Spanish sites indicated a change of sheep breed from the Iron Age to the Roman period, which was likely associated with the establishment of specialized economies (Colominas et al, 2019; Colominas, Palet, & Garcia‐Molsosa, 2020).…”

Circulación de animales en Iberia durante la Prehistoria reciente y la época clásica: métodos de análisis, primeros datos y retos de futuro.

“…1 (2020) ISSN: 0079-8215 EISSN: 2339-9171 (p. 7-27) al., 2006;Davis et al, 2012;Colominas et al, 2015) y, en GMM, también los astrágalos (p. ej., Colominas et al, 2019;Pöllath et al, 2019).…”

“…Esta especie probablemente llegó a través del comercio marítimo, tal vez desde el área de Cartago, y su abundancia en el registro (un 83% en un conjunto de 242 mandíbulas) demuestra la ocupación eficaz del nicho ecológico por parte de la forma comensal ya en el siglo iv aC (Valenzuela-Lamas et al, 2011). Mientras en Francia hay varios estudios sobre bovinos y suinos para explorar los cambios en el tamaño y la identificación de poblaciones y morfotipos durante la prehistoria reciente y época clásica (Nuviala et al, 2014;Duval et al, 2015Duval et al, , 2018, el primer trabajo en la península ibérica ha aparecido hace solo unos pocos meses (Colominas et al, 2019). El estudio revela que las ovejas analizadas del Pirineo y el área del Empordà son morfológicamente diferentes en la Edad del Hierro, mientras que en época romana es probable que haya una mayor circulación de animales entre las dos zonas.…”

“…A modo de conclusión, y comparando las diferentes líneas de evidencia disponibles, los trabajos apuntan, consistentemente, que el grado de movilidad animal en época romana fue mayor en comparación con la Edad del Hierro (Minniti et al, 2014;Colominas et al, 2015;Pires et al, 2017;Colominas et al, 2019;Nieto et al, aceptado), y que el rango de movilidad puede depender de la especie analizada (Albizuri et al, 2019;Nieto et al, en prensa).…”

Sorting the Flock: Quantitative Identification of Sheep and Goat from Isolated Third Lower Molars and Mandibles Through Geometric Morphometrics

“…However, only few studies have employed geometric morphometrics on caprine bones. For sheep and goat, this includes studies of the talus with the aim of distinguishing archaeological sheep and goat (Haruda, 2017), differentiate ancient wild sheep from modern and archaeological domestic sheep (Pöllath et al, 2018(Pöllath et al, , 2019, and investigate the variation between archaeological sheep morphotypes (Colominas et al, 2019;Haruda et al, 2019;Vuillien, 2020).…”