Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-7262s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-11T16:26:07.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feasting on fore-limbs: conspicuous consumption and identity in later prehistoric Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2015

Richard Madgwick  and
Jacqui Mulville
Richard Madgwick
Affiliation:
School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK (Email: madgwickrd3@cardiff.ac.uk)
Jacqui Mulville
Affiliation:
School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK (Email: madgwickrd3@cardiff.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The discovery in Llanmaes, South Wales, of a large midden dating from the Early Iron Age provided an opportunity to deepen our understanding of feasting in late prehistoric Britain. But the dominance of right fore-limbs of pigs in the faunal assemblage has raised questions about the social processes represented by this activity. The evidence suggests a move away from conspicuous consumption by an Early Iron Age elite towards a more community-focused event designed to galvanise social relations at a time when the breakdown of bronze exchange networks was challenging the social order.

Keywords

LlanmaesSouth Waleslater prehistoryfeastingidentityfaunal assemblageisotope analysispigs

Information

Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 345 , June 2015 , pp. 629 - 644
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Albarella, U. & Serjeantson, D.. 2002. A passion for pork: meat consumption at the British Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls, in Miracle, P. & Milner, N. (ed.) Consuming passions and patterns of consumption: 33–49. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Beglane, F. 2009. Long pigs’ feet from Iron Age Trim, in Potterton, M. & Seaver, M. (ed.) Uncovering medieval Trim: 57–71. Dublin: Four Courts Press.Google Scholar
Binford, L.R. 1981. Bones: ancient men and modern myths. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bleige-Bird, R. & Smith, E.. 2005. Signalling theory, strategic interaction and symbolic capital. Current Anthropology 46: 221–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/427115 Google Scholar
Browning, J. 2011. The animal bones, in Score, V. (ed.) Hoards, hounds and helmets: 103–35. Leicester: University of Leicester School of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Caseldine, A. 1990. Environmental archaeology in Wales. Lampeter: University College Lampeter.Google Scholar
Dietler, M. 2001. Theorizing the feast: rituals of consumption, commensal politics, and power in African contexts, in Dietler, M. & Hayden, B. (ed.) Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power: 65–114. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Dietler, M. & Hayden, B.. 2001. Digesting the feast—good to eat, good to drink, good to think, in Dietler, M. & Hayden, B. (ed.) Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power: 1–22. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Dobney, K.M., Jacques, S.D. & Irving, B.G.. 1996. Of butchers and breed: report on vertebrate remains from various sites in the city of Lincoln. Lincoln: City of Lincoln Archaeological Unit.Google Scholar
Evans, J.A., Montgomery, J., Wildman, G. & Boulton, N.. 2010. Spatial variations in biosphere 87Sr/86Sr in Britain. Journal of the Geological Society 167: 1–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/0016-76492009-090 Google Scholar
Gould, R. 1982. To have and have not: the ecology of sharing among hunter-gatherers, in Williams, N. & Hunn, E. (ed.) Resource managers: North American and Australian hunter-gatherers: 69–92. Canberra: Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Gwilt, A. & Lodwick, M.. 2009. The champion's portion? Prehistoric feasting at Llanmaes. Current Archaeology 233: 29–35.Google Scholar
Gwilt, A., Lodwick, M. & Deacon, J.. 2006. Excavation at Llanmaes, Vale of Glamorgan, 2006. Archaeology in Wales 46: 42–48.Google Scholar
Haselgrove, C. & Pope, R.. 2007. Characterising the Early Iron Age, in Haselgrove, C. & Pope, R. (ed.) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near continent: 1–23. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 1990. Nimrods, piscators, pluckers and planters: the emergence of food production. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9: 31–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0278-4165(90)90005-X Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 1996. Feasting in prehistoric and traditional societies, in Wiessner, P. & Schiefenhövel, W. (ed.) Food and the status quest: 127–46. Oxford: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 2001. Fabulous feasts: a prolegomenon to the importance of feasting, in Dietler, M. & Hayden, B. (ed.) Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power: 23–64. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. & Gargett, R.. 1990. Big man, big heart? A Mesoamerican view of the emergence of complex society. Ancient Mesoamerica 1: 3–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0956536100000043 Google Scholar
Hayden, B. & Villeneuve, A.. 2011. A century of feasting studies. Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 433–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-081309-145740 Google Scholar
Kaulicke, P. 2005. Las fiestas y sus residuos. Boletin de Arqueologia PUCP 9: 387–402.Google Scholar
Kelly, L. 2001. A case of ritual feasting at the Cahokia site, in Dietler, M. & Hayden, B. (ed.) Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power: 334–67. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Lawson, A.J. 2000. Potterne 1982–5: animal husbandry in later prehistoric Wiltshire. Salisbury: The Trust for Wessex Archaeology.Google Scholar
Lodwick, M. & Gwilt, A.. 2004. Cauldrons and consumption: Llanmaes and Llyn Fawr. Archaeology in Wales 44: 77–81.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 2011. Concluding seasons of fieldwork at Llanmaes, Vale of Glamorgan 2009–2010. Archaeology in Wales 50: 33–40.Google Scholar
Madgwick, R. 2011. Investigating the potential of holistic taphonomic analysis in zooarchaeological research. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Cardiff University.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. In press. New light on feasting and deposition: exploring accumulation history through taphonomic analysis at later prehistoric middens in Britain. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.Google Scholar
Madgwick, R. & Mulville, J. 2015. Reconstructing depositional histories through bone taphonomy: extending the potential of faunal data. Journal of Archaeological Science 53: 255–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madgwick, R., Mulville, J. & Stevens, R.E.. 2012a. Diversity in foddering strategy and herd management in Late Bronze Age Britain: an isotope investigation on pigs and other fauna from two midden sites. Environmental Archaeology 17: 126–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1461410312Z.00000000011 Google Scholar
Madgwick, R., Mulville, J. & Evans, J.E.. 2012b. Investigating diagenesis and the suitability of porcine enamel for strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotope analysis. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry 27: 733–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c2ja10356g Google Scholar
McOmish, D., Field, D. & Brown, G.. 2010. The Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age midden site at East Chisenbury, Wiltshire. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 103: 35–101.Google Scholar
Méniel, P. 1992. Les sacrifices d’animaux chez les Gaulois. Paris: Editions Errance.Google Scholar
Mercer, R.J. 1985. A Neolithic fortress and funeral center. Scientific American 252: 94–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0385-94 Google Scholar
Mulville, J. 1999. The mammal bones, in Parker Pearson, M. & Sharples, N. (ed.) Between land and sea: excavations at Dun Vulan, South Uist. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
Needham, S. 2007. 800 BC, the great divide, in C. Haselgrove & R. Pope (ed.) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near continent: 39–63. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Needham, S. & Spence, T.. 1996. Runnymede Bridge research excavations, volume 2: refuse and disposal at Area 16 East, Runnymede. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 1997. Refuse and the formation of middens. Antiquity 71: 77–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00084568 Google Scholar
Orton, D. 2007. A local barrow for local people? The Ferry Fryston cattle in context, in Croxford, B., Ray, N., Roth, R. & White, N. (ed.) TRAC 2006: Proceedings of the 16th Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference: 77–95. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M.. 1979. Food, energy and society. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Roberts, B.W., Broughton, D., Dinwiddy, M., Dosh, N., Fitzpatrick, A.P., Hook, D., Meeks, N., Mongiatti, A., Woodward, A. & Woodward, P.. In press. Collapsing commodities or lavish offerings? Understanding massive metalwork deposition at Langton Matravers, Dorset, during the Bronze Age–Iron Age transition. Oxford Journal of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Serjeantson, D. 2007. Intensification of animal husbandry in the late Bronze Age? The contribution of sheep and pigs, in Haselgrove, C. & Pope, R. (ed.) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near continent: 80–93. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Sharples, N. 2007. Building communities and creating identities in the first millennium BC, in Haselgrove, C. & Pope, R. (ed.) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near continent: 174–84. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Sykes, N.J. 2007. Taking sides: the social life of venison in medieval England, in Pluskowski, A. (ed.) Breaking and shaping beastly bodies: animals as material culture in the Middle Ages: 149–60. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Ten Cate, C.L. 1972. Wan god mast gift. . .Bilder aus der Geschiche der Schweinezucht im Walde. Wageningen: Centre for Agricultural Publishing.Google Scholar
Tubb, P.C. 2011. Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age transition in the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire (British Archaeological Reports British series 543). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Twiss, K.C. 2008. Transformations in an early agricultural society: feasting in the southern Levantine pre-pottery Neolithic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 27: 418–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2008.06.002 Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 2012. The complexities of home cooking: public feasts and private meals inside the Çatalhöyük house. Journal for Ancient Studies 2: 53–73.Google Scholar
Viner, S., Evans, J., Albarella, U. & Parker Pearson, M.. 2010. Cattle mobility in prehistoric Britain: strontium isotope analysis of cattle teeth from Durrington Walls (Wiltshire, Britain). Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 2812–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.06.017 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waddington, K. 2008. Topographies of accumulation at Late Bronze Age Potterne, in Davis, O., Sharples, N. & Waddington, K. (ed.) Changing perspectives on the first millennium BC: 161–84. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 2009. Reassembling the Bronze Age: exploring the southern British midden sites. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Cardiff University.Google Scholar
Waddington, K. & Sharples, N.. 2011. The Whitchurch excavations 2006–2009: an interim report. Cardiff: School of History and Archaeology.Google Scholar