INTRODUCTION

Dairy products are a problem for archaeology because they leave little direct trace other than residues. Though we know from the literary sources that a range of cheeses and other milk products were consumed and enjoyed in the Mediterranean heartlands, our knowledge of what was available in Britain is fairly minimal. Caesar referred to the tribes of the interior living on milk and meat, but as he also maintained they wore skins, this seems more likely to belong to the realms of describing a generalised barbarian, than to the accurate reporting of eating practice. This chapter will outline what we do know about dairy products in Britain, but given the dearth of information it will be rather short. Given the results starting to emerge from residue analysis of prehistoric pottery, it might be anticipated that a much longer one would be possible were Roman pottery ever to be analysed in a similar way.

MILK

The previous chapter has shown that milk-producing animals in the form of cattle, sheep and goats were present in some numbers in Roman Britain. To what extent they were exploited for milk is unknown. It is clear that in general cattle were not being managed primarily as dairy animals. In a dairy herd, most male calves are surplus to requirements so they are fattened and slaughtered as veal. This can often be seen in post-medieval animal bone assemblages, but is not observable in the Roman ones.