Animalising cultural boundaries: identity, foodways and subsistence in Medieval Iberia

Marcos Garcia-Garcia (1) , Guillermo Garcia Contreras-Ruiz (2) , Luca Mattei (2) , Yaiza Hernandez-Casas (2) , Rowena Banerjea (3) , Jérôme Ros (4) , Michelle Alexander (5) , Aleks Pluskowski (3)

1 Universidad de Alicante
2 UGR - Universidad de Granada = University of Granada
3 UOR - University of Reading
4 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
5 University of York [York, UK]

Foodways represent a sphere of action which, in the past as well as in the present, has been recurrently used in the field of everyday life as one of the main identity markers for producing, reproducing and expressing cultural affinity or otherness. In an historical context marked by profound differences derived from the cohabitation of diverse ethno- religious groups such as medieval Iberia, eating habits played an essential role in the demarcation of cultural boundaries between members of different communities that can be explored archaeologically.This paper presents the results of the zooarchaeological study of a set of sites occupied during the medieval period and located in different frontier regions of the Iberian Peninsula. The results demonstrate the informative potential of archaeofaunal analysis to contribute to the recognition of the consumption patterns of animal food products, the identity of the groups responsible for the accumulation of the food debris and the systems of exploitation and management of the animals.Project "Landscapes of (Re)Conquest: Dynamics of Multicultural Frontiers in Medieval South Western Europe" (AH/R013861/1), funded by AHRC.

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire; Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Marcos Garcia-Garcia, Guillermo Garcia Contreras-Ruiz, Luca Mattei, Yaiza Hernandez-Casas, Rowena Banerjea, et al.. Animalising cultural boundaries: identity, foodways and subsistence in Medieval Iberia. 28th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Aug 2022, Budapest, Hungary. ⟨halshs-03788600⟩