Lídia Colominas participated in the 11th ICAZ-AGP Working Group Meeting (https://sites.google.com/palaeome.org/11th-icaz-apgm-dk/home), that took place in Copenhagen (Denmark) from the 14th to the 17th of October. The meeting once again provided an excellent forum to share results, concerns and ideas about archaeozoology, genetics, morphometrics and proteomics. She presented a talk, together with Daniel Anton Myburgh, Ben Krause-Kyora, Pere Castanyer, Joan Frigola and Joaquim Tremoleda on a cattle mass grave in the Roman villa of Vilauba.
Title: What are 14 Roman cattle carcasses doing in a pit? Archaeozoological and aDNA analyses of a mass grave at the Roman villa of Vilauba (Catalonia)
Abstract: In the Roman era, it is assumed that most rural settlements relied on agriculture as their main economic activity. However, animal husbandry must have also been a strategic sector, as it has links to agriculture, trade, wool and leather production and contributed to the human diet. The contribution of animal husbandry to the economy is often overlooked, due to the fact that its activities left little trace in the the archaeological record, compared to other economic activities whose infrastructures are clearly visible through ovens, dolia, presses, or mills. Sometimes, however, unexpected findings make us rethink these assumptions.
The research presented here deals with the remains of fourteen cattle discovered in a mass grave at the Roman villa of Vilauba (Catalonia). The osteological study of these remains combined with a GIS approach, allowed us to document that it was a homogeneous deposit in primary position created over a short time. Therefore, it shows the contemporary presence of fourteen cattle (males, females and castrates of several ages) in the villa. Investigation of ancient DNA (aDNA) from these cattle remains, led to the discovery that some of the cattle may have suffered from a form of soft tissue gangrene, which likely prompted the villa’s inhabitants to slaughter the entire herd.
Lídia Colominas is a Ramón y Cajal fellow with the project Roman expansion and acculturations at both sides of the Mediterranean: searching for patterns, rates and singularities through archaeozoology. (RYC-2019-026732-I) funded by MICIU/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 and by “FSE invierte en tu futuro”.
