Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:15:33.854Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The raw, the cooked and the burnt

Interpretations of food and animals in the Hebridean Iron Age1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Ewan Campbell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The iron age settlement at Sollas, North Uist, Scotland, provides an unusually varied set of data relating to food and the role of animals in society. By comparing the evidence of food residues on pottery with animal remains from middens, foundation burials and cremations, structural patterns emerge which throw light on the relative status of domestic species. Sheep and cows are treated differently, with sheep being mainly buried, and cattle cremated. This patterning enables a speculative world view of the inhabitants to be constructed, and further analysis shows that mature cattle were classified differently from younger animals. It is suggested that these normally hidden structuring principles cause difficulties for the conventional interpretation of animal remains on other iron age sites.

Keywords

Iron Ageanimal remainsfood residuesstructured depositionanimal classification
Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , December 2000 , pp. 184 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2000

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.)

References

Armit, I. (ed.), 1990: Beyond the brochs, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Armit, I., 1991: The atlantic Scottish Iron Age. Five levels of chronology, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland 121, 181–214.Google Scholar
Armit, I., 1996: The archaeology of Skye and the western Isles, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Armit, I., Campbell, E. and Dunwell, S., (forthcoming): Excavations at Eilean Olabhat, north Uist, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland.Google Scholar
Barber, J., Halstead, P., James, H. and Lee, F., 1989: An unusual iron age burial at Hornish Point, south Uist, Antiquity 63, 773–78.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P., 1977: Outline of a theory of practice, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Brayshay, B., 1999: The pollen, in Parker Pearson, M. and Sharples, N., Between land and sea. Excavations at Dun Vulan, Sheffield, 290.Google Scholar
Campbell, E., 1991: Excavations of a wheelhouse and other iron age structures at Sollas, north Uist, by RJC Atkinson in 1957, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland 121, 117–173.Google Scholar
Campbell, E., Housley, R. and Taylor, M., (forthcoming): Dating charred food residues on Hebridean iron age pottery, in Ballin-Smith, B. and Banks, I. (eds), In the shadow of the broch.Google Scholar
Cheape, H., 1988: Food and liquid containers in the Hebrides. A window on the Iron Age, in Fenton, A. and Myrdal, J. (eds), Food and drink and travelling accessories. Essays in honour of Gosta Berg, John Donald and National Museums of Scotland, 6–27.Google Scholar
Crawford, I.A., 1986: The west Highlands and islands. A view of 50 centuries. The Udal (north Uist) evidence, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Downes, J., 1999: Cremation. A spectacle and a journey, in Downes, J. and Pollard, T. (eds), The loved body's corruption, Glasgow, 19–29.Google Scholar
Evans Pritchard, E., 1956: Nuer religion, Oxford.Google Scholar
Fairhurst, H., 1971: The wheelhouse site at A' Cheardach Bheag on Drimore machair, south Uist, Glasgow archaeology journal 2, 72–106.Google Scholar
Finlay, J., 1991: Animal bone, in Campbell, Fiche 3: D9-F10.Google Scholar
Gerritsen, F., 1999: To build and to abandon. The cultural biography of late prehistoric houses and farmsteads in the southern Netherlands, Archaeological dialogues 6, 78–97.Google Scholar
Giles, M. and Parker Pearson, M., 1999: Learning to live in the Iron Age. Dwelling and praxis, in Bevan, B. (ed.), Northern exposure. Interpretive devolution and the Iron Ages in Britain, Leicester, 217–231.Google Scholar
Gilmour, S. and Cook, M., 1998: Excavations at Dun Vulan. A reinterpretation of the reappraised Iron Age, Antiquity 72, 327–37.Google Scholar
Harding, D. and Armit, I., 1990: Survey and excavation in west Lewis, in Armit, I. (ed.), Beyond the brochs, Edinburgh, 71–107.Google Scholar
Hill, J. D., 1995: Ritual and rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex. A study on the formation of a specific archaeological record, Oxford.Google Scholar
Holt, J. Z., 1996: Beyond optimisation. Alternative ways of examining animal exploitation, World archaeology 28(1), 89–109.Google Scholar
Ingram, C., Marshall, P., Mulville, J. and Parker Pearson, M., 1999: The late bronze age and early iron age community at Cladh Hallan, south Uist, Sheffield University.Google Scholar
Kelly, F, 1988: A guide to early Irish law, Dublin.Google Scholar
Lane, A., 1990: Hebridean pottery. Problems of definition, chronology, presence and absence, in Armit, I. (ed.), Beyond the brochs, Edinburgh, 108–130.Google Scholar
McCormick, F., 1992: Early faunal evidence for dairying, Oxford journal of archaeology 11, 201–209.Google Scholar
Moore, H., 1982: The interpretation of spatial patterning in settlement residues, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbols in action, Cambridge, 74–79.Google Scholar
Moore, H., 1986: Space, text and gender. An anthropological study of the Marakwet of Kenya, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Mulville, J., 1999: The mammal bones, in Parker Pearson, M. and Sharples, N., Between land and sea. Excavations at Dun Vulan, Sheffield, 234–273.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., 1996: Food, fertility and front doors in the first millenium B.C., in Champion, T. and Colli, J.(eds), The Iron Age in Britain and Ireland. Recent trends, Sheffield, 117–132.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M. and Sharples, N., 1999: Between land and sea. Excavations at Dun Vulan, Sheffield.Google Scholar
Richards, C., 1996: Henges and water, Journal of material culture 1, 313–336.Google Scholar
Roymans, N., 1996: The sword or the plough. Regional dynamics in the romanisation of Belgic Gaul and the Rhineland area, in Roymans, N. (ed.), From the sword to the plough. Three studies on the earliest romanisation of northern Gaul, Amsterdam, 9–126.Google Scholar
Sharples, N., 1999: The iron age and norse settlement at Bornish, south Uist. An interim report on the 1999 excavations, Cardiff.Google Scholar
Smith, H., 1999: The plant remains, in Parker Pearson, M. and Sharples, N., Between land and sea. Excavations at Dun Vulan, Sheffield, 297–335.Google Scholar
Taylor, M, (forthcoming): Chemical residue analysis of linearbandkeramik material from neolithic Europe, (Ph.D. thesis, University of Glasgow).Google Scholar
Thomas, K. D., (ed.), 1996: Zooarchaeology. New approaches and theory, World archaeology 28(1), London.Google Scholar
Tuan, Y., 1974: Topophilia. A study of environmental perception, attitudes and values, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Young, A. and Richardson, K.M., 1960: A' Cheardach Mhor, Drimore, south Uist, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland 93 (1959–60), 135–173.Google Scholar