The Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC-CERCA) has signed a new collaboration agreement with the Palarq Foundation in order to develop the project “Seasonal feeding habits of cattle in the Iron Age site of Mas Castellar de Pontós (Girona, Catalonia)”.
With duration of one year, the project will be led by Dra. Lídia Colominas (director of the Archaeozoology Laboratory of the ICAC-CERCA) and Dra. Chiara Messana (postdoctoral researcher at the Prehistory Department of the UAB), who already collaborated with Colominas in the framework of her doctoral thesis, defended last April 2024.
The new project seeks a better understanding of cattle feeding strategies at Mas Castellar de Pontós site. To achieve this, an isotopic sequential analysis (δ18O and δ13C values) of the mineral fraction of the tooth enamel of the lower second and third molars will be carried out.
This approach will make it possible to determine, for example, if cattle’s diet was supplemented with the use of forage out of season to compensate for the seasonal limitations of the pastures. Likewise, it will be possible to establish whether the integration of cultivated C4 cereals in the diet of the cattle of Mas Castellar de Pontós had a seasonal nature: fundamental information, since the use of fodder or the seasonal integration of cereals implies a community organization and a different exploitation of the environment.
Therefore, the research will provide first order information on the management and maintenance of cattle by the Iron Age communities of the north-east of the peninsula, as well as on the relationship between livestock and agriculture. In addition, it will contribute to expanding the limited biogeochemical data available for Iron Age chronologies in the Iberian Peninsula.
