Institut für Prähistorische Archäologie, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany.
Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2021 Oct 1;16(10):e0258234. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258234. eCollection 2021.
Cattle were the predominant domestic animal in the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands, yet their management is still incompletely understood. Some aspects of cattle management, such as birth season and the provision of fodder, have received little or no attention so far. This paper is the first to investigate these aspects for the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands, through a case study of the site of Houten-Castellum. The rural settlement of Houten-Castellum was inhabited from the Middle Iron Age to the Middle Roman period, allowing a comparison between the Iron Age and Roman period. Excavations at this site have yielded a large, well-preserved animal bone assemblage. This paper investigates cattle husbandry by using an integrated approach, combining a multi-isotope analysis (oxygen, carbon and strontium) with archaeozoological and archaeobotanical results from Houten-Castellum and comparing the results with archaeobotanical evidence for fodder and evidence for dairy use for the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands in general. While our data set is small and results must therefore be interpreted cautiously, there is convincing evidence for an extended birth season in the Middle Iron Age, as well as the use of fodder.
牛是铁器时代和罗马尼德兰的主要家畜，但它们的管理仍不完全清楚。到目前为止，牛管理的某些方面，如出生季节和饲料供应，几乎没有或根本没有得到关注。本文首次通过对胡顿-卡斯特伦遗址的案例研究，调查了铁器时代和罗马尼德兰的这些方面。胡顿-卡斯特伦的农村定居点从中石器时代到中罗马时期有人居住，允许对铁器时代和罗马时期进行比较。该遗址的发掘出土了大量保存完好的动物骨骼组合。本文通过综合方法研究了牛的饲养情况，结合了多同位素分析（氧、碳和锶）以及来自胡顿-卡斯特伦的考古动物学和考古植物学结果，并将结果与铁器时代和罗马尼德兰一般的饲料考古植物学证据和奶制品使用证据进行了比较。虽然我们的数据集很小，因此结果必须谨慎解释，但有令人信服的证据表明中石器时代的生育季节延长，以及饲料的使用。
