[Sca-cooks] book on raising and consuming animals in Roman Italy

[Sandra Kisner]

This an excerpt from the BMR review of a relatively new book on "Production 
and Consumption of Animals in Roman Italy."  I'm not sure how much interest 
there is in it here (except maybe for Adamantius, who may already have it, 
for all I know), but if anyone is interested I can send them the uncut 
review off-list, or you could go to the BMR website.

Sandra

****

(From BMCR 2005.10.15)

Michael MacKinnon, Production and Consumption of Animals in Roman Italy: 
Integrating the Zooarchaeological and Textual Evidence.
Portsmouth, RI Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2004.  Pp. 264.  ISBN 
1-887829-54-7.  $79.50.

Reviewed by George W. Houston, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
(gwhousto at email.unc.edu)
Word count 2320 words
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To read a print-formatted version of this review, see 
http//ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2005/2005-10-15.html
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Seldom has the title of a book been more accurately descriptive. 
MacKinnon's (henceforth M's) goal is to assemble as complete a picture as 
possible of how animals were raised and used in Roman Italy. To accomplish 
this goal, he has assembled a database of the faunal remains (primarily 
bones and teeth) from 97 Italian sites, most of them dating in the period 
from the second century BC to the third century AD. He also summarizes what 
we learn from ancient textual sources, especially but by no means 
exclusively the writers on agriculture. The result is a composite -- in M's 
terms, an "integrated" -- picture of Italian husbandry and the Roman diet. 
The book does not advance our understanding of Roman animal husbandry, nor 
of the Roman diet, in any major way, but it provides many interesting 
details and it is important as an experiment in method, for it illustrates 
clearly the potential inherent in the study of faunal remains as well as 
the problems involved in using zooarchaeological and textual evidence.
<snip>

The four chapters that follow are the heart of the book. They deal with 
cattle (Chapter 4), sheep and goats (5), pigs (6), and butchery, meat 
preservation, and cooking (7). Each chapter consists of three parts. First, 
M sets out and analyzes, in relentless detail, the zooarchaeological 
evidence. Second, he assembles a composite picture of ancient practices and 
preferences as they emerge from written texts. The third section is an 
"integration" of the zooarchaeological and textual evidence, in which M 
discusses where the two types of evidence supplement one another, agree, or 
conflict. My comments will deal with these three types of material.
<snip>

Conclusions: M deals in this book with just four animals, primarily as 
sources of meat, although he often provides statistics on other taxa as 
well. There are good reasons for his decision, but it has serious 
consequences. We are not learning much about the Roman diet as a whole, but 
about the preferences over time for one or another of the four animals. The 
historical conclusions that can be drawn are in general unsurprising. A few 
examples: bovines generally lived beyond three years (p. 80; they could be 
used for several years as draft animals); adult bulls were rare (p. 80; 
they are less tractable than cows or castrated males); the Romans did 
recognize and raise two or more breeds of these animals (cattle, p. 85; 
pigs, pp. 154-55; note M's statement on p. 243, "perhaps the greatest value 
of integrating zooarchaeological and textual data comes in terms of the 
analysis of animal breeds and the recognition of breeding improvements"; 
but note also that even this evidence has not yet helped us identify the 
specific breeds); many and perhaps most animals were butchered outside of 
urban areas, the meat then being brought in as whole or partial carcasses 
(despite the lack of refrigeration), p. 184; cattle were an important 
source of meat, pp. 189-94; and in general meat was desired as a part of 
the diet, p. 217. These are all interesting points, but they make a rather 
modest contribution to our knowledge of ancient Italy.
<snip>

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