The University of Leicester Department of Ancient History and Archaeology Different perspectives on why people kept chickens in Roman Britain - A multi-disciplinary approach By Alastair Myles Cooper Dissertation for MA in Archaeology I certify that: the following dissertation is my own work the sources of all non-original material is clearly indicated all material presented by me in other modules in indicated all assistance received has been acknowledged ……………………………………………… 2017 Alastair Myles Cooper ‘Different perspectives on why people kept chickens in Roman Britain - A multi-disciplinary approach’ Abstract Many theoretical methods of studying the Roman world over the past three centuries have emerged offering different perspectives on the Roman life from contradictory points of view. This work shall emphasize those pertaining to a few categories pertaining to food, drink and identity in the Roman world whilst taking a homogenous approach to exemplifying different patterns of thought. This piece of work showcases how the history of the chicken in the Early Roman Britain is littered with evidence from many different disciplines. It explores different avenues of research epitomizing how the chicken has been portrayed and utilised in the Early and through to the Late Roman period. The use of classical literature along with art historical perspectives can act as two lines of inquiry that slotted together allows the scholar to study the interaction of humans and chickens throughout a pivotal point in history when the chicken became one of the most popular animals in Roman Britain. The archaeozoological evidence indicates that the chicken was not only kept for ‘cockfighting’ as Caesar claims in De Bello Gallico, but also for eggs. A study of the environmental evidence and archaeozoological evidence will provide analysis of chicken husbandry in Roman Britain investigating the importance of male and female chickens and distinguishing between sexes. Furthermore one of the downplayed pointers is the use of the medullary bone, which can be used to seasonally date assemblages, sex birds, and help the interpretation of archaeological assemblages. The association of the chicken with Roman religious cults shall also be explored to understand why the animal was deemed worthy of sacrifice at shrines and alters and how religion may have utilized the domestic fowl. Continuing this investigation I will look at Iron Age burials and Roman burials with chicken bones and eggs and discuss their importance. Lastly, a study of material culture in relation to the chicken will provide a parallel to the other evidence to show how popular the chicken because through the use of chicken style brooches. This will allow new perspectives to be drawn on why people might have worn a chicken brooch. Acknowledgements First and foremost I am extremely grateful for the help of my supervisor Richard Thomas who patiently helped me through the first few drafts of this MA dissertation and supplied the data for chapter 4.4 and 4.5. Secondly, I am grateful to the metal detectorists who have discovered the chicken brooches discussed in this research in chapter 7. Thirdly, I am thankful for all of my friends and fellow scholars who have aided me in discussions of the topic and in their proofreading of the final text. Fourthly, I am grateful to my best friend who without her support I would not have taken on this MA course. Finally, I am grateful to my mother whom without her constant encouragement I would not have been pushed to complete a BA in Classical Civilisations at the University of Leeds, an MA study in Archaeology of North West Europe at the University of Amsterdam and finally this MA in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. Thank you for always pushing me to invest in my future and chase my dreams. Carpe Diem Contents 1.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………………8 2.0 Roman imperialism and different perspectives…………………………..11 3.0 Chickens in Roman literary contexts in normative approaches………..19 3.1 Cockfighting in Roman Britain…………………………………………….26 3.2 Cockfighting in Roman Artwork…………………………………………..28 3.3 Painting in the Roman world and the need for eggs ………………….....31 4.0 Archaeological evidence for chicken and eggs in Roman Britain…........35 4.1 The medullary bone: the archaeozoological answer……………………..38 4.2 Archaeological examples of medullary bone …………………………….41 4.3 A discussion of Spur growth………………………………………………..44 4.4 Archaeozoological evidence for chickens from Roman London……….45 4.5 Archaeozoological evidence for chickens from the Central Midlands...53 5.0 The symbolism of gods in Romano-Celtic religions and their association with chickens……………………………………………………………………...57 6.0 What is symbolic about the cockerel brooches of Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D in Britain? …………………………………………………...59 7.0 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………66 List of Figures and Pictures Figure 1 – Histogram of chicken and eggs in Apicius’ cookbook…………21 Figure 2 –Pie chart of frequency of chicken and eggs ……………………...21 Picture 1 - Roman Vindolanda writing tablets ……………………………… 22 Picture 2 – Mosaic of two cockerels preparing to fight from the House of the Labyrinth in Pompeii 1ST century Italy ……………………………………… 30 Picture 3 - Mosaic of two cockerels fighting from the House of the Peddler of the Erotes from 3rd Century Antioch Turkey………………………………30 Picture 4 - Medullary bone …………………………………………………… 39 Figure 3 - Number of chicken femurs with medullary bone ……………... 43 Figure 4 - Percentage of tarsometarsus spurred, unspurred or spur scar .. 43 Figure 5 – Unspurred/Spurred/N/A chickens from London………………. 47 Figure 6 - Greatest Length (GL) of chicken tarsometatarsus in (mm)…… 48 Figure 7 - Greatest Length (GL) of chicken tarsometatarsus in mm……. 48 Figure 8 - Bimodal scatter diagram from Early Roman London ………….50 Figure 9 - Bimodal scatter diagram from Middle Roman London ……….51 Figure 10 Bimodal scatter diagram from Late Roman London……………51 Figure 11 - Bimodal scatter diagram from all periods combined from Roman London…………………………………………………………………………...52 Figure 12 - Total number of sites with chicken bones in Central Midlands………………………………………………………………………...54 Figure 13 - Mean number of NISP of chicken bones ……………………...55 Figure 14 - Mean number of total NISP……………………………………...56 Figure 15 - Regional Distribution of Chicken style Brooches…………….63 Figure 16 - County distribution of Chicken style Brooches ………………64 Figure 17 – Frequencies of Brooch types found using PAS in the Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D…………………………………………………..65 Pictures 5 - Chicken Brooch Hattatt type 167…………………………………66 List of Tables Table 1 - Number of eggs produced per week per chicken………………….23 Table 2 – Number of different sites and the type of painting method used from across the Roman Empire …………………………………………………34 Table 3 – Percentage of Chicken femurs with and without medullary bone ………………………………………………………………………………………42 Table 4 – Percentage of tarsometatarsals spurred ……………………………43 Table 5 – Number of chicken bones based on sex …………………………....49 Table 6 – Mean, Range and Mode of Greatest length (GL) of tarsometatarsus for all periods ………………………………………………….49 Table 7 – Chicken NISP vs. Overall NISP as a percentage…………………..56 1.0 Introduction One of the major premises of this dissertation is to challenge the viewpoint propagated by authors arguing the primary reason why chickens were utilized in Roman Britain was for cockfighting (Sykes 2012, Doherty 2013, Poole 2010, Serjeantson 2009). As a case in point the author Naomi Sykes suggests in her article the chicken was popularized primarily because of the development of a cockfighting culture. She makes the claim that in the case of the chicken its spread and domestication was not for primary or secondary products. But claims it was: “Perhaps for their eggs, probably for their feathers and certainly for cockfighting” (Sykes 2012, 160). The problem I see here is Sykes’ assertion that chickens were kept certainly for cockfighting and only probably for eggs. I intend to prove in Roman Britain this is not the case and egg production was of prime importance. There are numerous points of contestation I will explore further. It is my opinion that human beings will always use primary and secondary products of animals when they are available. Archaeologically, the real problem is proving chickens were kept for their eggs. Secondly, it’s showing how those eggs were used and explaining where we should expect to find them such as urban or rural environments. One of the leading archaeozoologists in the country argued it is impossible to understand how important eggs might have been. “Beside providing meat, hens would have contributed eggs to the diet, although it is impossible to say exactly how important a commodity like this would have been.” (Maltby 1979:70) I intend to show that this is not the case through a careful biometric analysis of domestic fowl bones alongside a multi-disciplinary approach to show chickens were kept for their eggs and explain how we can demonstrate this. I also pose the question of how popular chicken was as a food group by analysing number of identified fragments (NISP) from the central Midlands to see whether we have the same number of chickens consumed. By analysing this data we can build up a bigger picture of chicken consumption in Roman Britain compared with other mammals. The approach I set out uses evidence from classical literary sources, archaeozoology, material culture studies and environmental archaeology. The methods used to examine lines of evidence involve narratology; normative examples of egg production; archaeozoological methods and environmental methods for the recovery of eggshell. One reason why Roman Britons may have needed a plentiful supply of eggs is because they were frequently used as a binding agent in paint. One of the many things the Romans brought to Britain was painting of interior and exterior buildings. There are thousands of fragments of painted wall plaster that have been recovered from urban examples in Roman Britain. This paper aims to show that this evidence indicates there was a significant requirement for the supply of eggs and this was one of the reasons the Romans farmed chickens. I do not deny the importance of cockfighting in Roman Britain and will emphasize using various lines of inquiry that cockfighting did exist in Rome and her provinces in chapter 3. However this study draws upon new lines of evidence such as art historical perspectives to understand how this type of evidence can be used to support popular claims about the dangers of cockfighting and the culture that emerges around it. I shall even demonstrate in chapter 7 that the importance of cockfighting is one of the reasons certain types of material culture may have been produced. This is to show that one reason why the Britons kept chickens was for the cockfighting culture. Furthermore a discussion of the role of the chicken in religious rituals will provide an alternative way of understanding the human-chicken relationship. It may have been that the chicken was first used in religious circumstances in the Late Iron Age and this continued with the coming of the Romans. The various Roman religious cults that sacrificed the chicken were Mithras and Mercury. All of which will provide an opportunity to look at this dynamic and secular nature of the animal. After discussing the evidence for the production and use of eggs I shall use the evidence of chicken style brooches to demonstrate the importance of the chicken style ornaments. A brooch is an ornament fastening clothing with a hinge and catch. This dissertation will show how material culture aids the construction of identity. It aims to show that the chicken became one of the most influential animals in the Roman period. This part aims to show chicken style brooches were symbolic for a variety of reasons. The objective of studying these brooches is also to understand how we can interpret their distribution across Roman Britain and consequently the significance of these brooches to their owners. The chicken was first domesticated in Britain during the Middle Iron Age and became well established by the Roman period (Benecke 1993, Poole 2010). The chicken came from the red jungle fowl from China and South-East Asia spreading across Eastern Europe and eventually arriving in Britain. Molecular genetic studies have shown that domestic chickens have a monophyletic origin, the red jungle fowl was the sole ancestor of all chickens and most likely, all breeds originated from Asia which supports the theory that the chicken has multiple origins in South-East Asia (Liu 2006: 19). The most likely source of the domestication of this bird comes from the Greek East and Egypt through trade contacts with the Persians who had acquired the chicken from the Far East (Kysely 2010: 11). The period for which the chicken was domesticated has long been argued as the Iron Age for Britain, however elsewhere in Europe evidence has come to light from sites of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites (Kysely 2010: 10). According to Fothergill (2017:1) “most examples are the Late Iron Age in date (after 100 B.C.), a series of new calibrated radiocarbon dates demonstrates that chickens were rare but present from the later Early and Middle Iron Age in some areas of England.” (Kitch 2006, Strid 2015). 2.0 Roman imperialism and different perspectives The study of the Roman Empire is one that has enraptured the people of Europe from the earliest periods of the renaissance with focuses on the preservation of key manuscripts and since the 18th and 19th centuries traditionally focused on ‘Romanization’. From the 18th century Roman imperialism was being used as a way of legitimizing colonialism it as a political tool aiding British colonialism (Haverfield 1923) and Italian (Mouritsen 1998) and German unification (Mommsen 1885). Post-colonialists have criticized these viewpoints based upon their ‘passive-active’; ‘native vs. roman’; ‘barbarian vs. civilized’; ‘urban vs rural’ dichotomies that are completely unacceptable (Millet 1990b, Freeman 1996, Bartel 1980). These traditional approaches to studying the Roman world have focused on studying classical literature, ancient religion, regional language and governing and political bodies of the Roman Empire. In more recent years people from disciplines as divergent as natural sciences, linguistics, sociology and psychology have begun studying the effects of the Roman Empire. The student of archaeology is now faced with a wealth of literature, which tackles issues regarding race, sexuality, gender-studies and broader issues of the self and identity. But normally all of theses effects are of the colonialism of Rome and the ‘pax romana’ because as Virgil writes … Aeneas mission was “You, Roman, be sure to rule the world (be these your arts), to crown peace with justice, to spare the vanquished and to crush the proud” (Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 851-854) This short but brief overview of the various types of studies in the Roman Empire offers up a brief introduction to the various approaches that have been set up. In the past normative approaches have been slandered as they show inadequate and modern perception upon the past. Highlighting unfitting attitudes to the past built around by our 21st century cultural perceptions, which inhibit us from making contextually appropriate judgement calls upon the archaeological evidence (Rogers 2011, 3). However in this paper I will be arguing that normative responses can we used when we are talking about animals in the Roman Empire. For Animals do not change. They do not appear to have grown smarter, more intelligent or evolved the way humans have done over the course of history. In this sense quite different to human beings, animals that roam modern fields may seem to be quite similar to animals over 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire. They would more than likely share similar characteristics and behave is a similar way. This is to speak of animals that are organically farmed and reared in rural environments. To say a battery chicken would be similar to that of a Roman chicken is quite obscene, however a free range chicken would today and 2,000 years ago probably share more in common than a 21st century man and a roman citizen. Animals will still live, behave and act the same as they did millenniums ago if they are kept as livestock organically. For example a chicken will still eat what it can find, crow in the morning and lay eggs and for this reason I see normative perceptions as an intriguing revenue for further research especially when looking into the dynamics of why people kept chickens in the past. The ins and out of how and why will be explored in greater depth in Chapter 3 which will discuss Roman writers attitudes to chickens however it is worth noting here that chickens by and large have more than likely had the same kind of treatment right up until the industrial revolution when battery farming of chickens commenced. In the Roman period the keeping of chickens in town was more commonplace and could be seen as a method of attaining wealth, power and secondary produce such as feathers and eggs. As to what, the use of these products is, I shall explore later. However the fact is that the keeping of chickens organically is still a similar process today as it would have been back then hence normative responses seem apt. A most interesting approach is too ask questions regarding how the things in the past were perceived using sensory techniques such as asking questions of how space, landscape and environment where sensed and experienced. For example would the crowing of the cockerel in the city have acted as a morning call for people? Did the sound annoy them as it surely does us or does the emphatic sound bring in a new day? Of course our cultural perception of sounds of urban environments (cars, traffic, fumes) is as dangerously dissimilar to that of the Roman era yet certain smells, sights and sounds would have been analogous. Approach one is on identities One of the major approaches over the past fifteen years has been to study the effects of changes macroscopically to group, social and individual identities (Allen & Sykes 2011). The build up of Roman identity in the provinces was mixed of various layers of stratigraphy because identity is an amalgamation of your name, class, religion, education, occupation, status, sex, ethnicity, age and language (Revell 2008). In this sense identity is built around a number of environmental and personal aspects. However it should become clear that objects and the acquisition of them is something that defines us regardless of our physically apparent identity – our choices, our decisions and our shopping habits define who we are. For example in the city centre of Leicester the Roman macellum would of sold a number of ornaments, foodstuff and beakers, jars etc., which had different forms and functions. Although they may have appeared similar each one may have had different styles and forms and would have evoked a different message. The choices available to the Romans may have allowed for a greater amount of individuality to be expressed through the diversity of acquired goods such as types of cooking ware, food and available books. However, the enjoyment of splurging on new goods like books can be seen as a prominent expression of identity because what we read promotes our worldview. Whereas other objects merely express wealth and status rather than something that forms the fabric of identity. Bogost (2012) mentions that objects may have had different lifespans and that some may have been past down generation to generation whilst others were easily replaced. Essentially we are both affected by external and internal choices (our choice of spoken language, food enjoyed, activities partaken in). But is it the acquisition and use of objects something that defines who we are or is it our education and knowledge? From another viewpoint Revell (2009) argues Roman studies should be focus less on the elite male perspective, which is what most authors have focus on in Roman archaeology. We should try and study the family unit from a feminist perspective highlighting the importance of everyone in the family unit. She does this by emphasizing the importance of families in the Roman world illustrating that tombstones and altars were occasional dedicated in honour of deceased members of the family. This way we can see an expression of children, women and men who built tombs for their deceased. She shifts the discussion from looking at the elite males lives to the build up of all kinds of personal identities being made up of multiple layers (Revell 2008). Collins (2007) examined the aspect of identity from a nuanced perspective examining how people leave living memories behind through the epigraphy on inscribed monuments. He draws upon work directly related to psychology and emphasizes that the social complex inside each person is a multifaceted creation with duplicate layers inexpressible through a mere inscription by highlighting what was and was not inscribed on the altars. For example he states how people are sons, fathers, grandfathers amongst other social roles they have to facilitate which may be inscribe don monuments. His emphasis displays how one important aspect of individual identity is too do with the family unit. In his argument he coins the use of the term interfacing as being a model for discussing these types of interactions and inscriptions. These approaches though varied all look at the family or different aspects of a persons identity in the Roman Empire from nuanced perspectives and allow us to better understand what it would of felt like to be part of a ever changing and globalizing world. Whilst the focus can even draw upon the identities of different people who might have experienced the effects of Roman rule under different colonial encounters (Mattingly 2004, 2006, Millet 1990). So where is the future for the scholar of the Roman Empire and how have these current debates enabled us to discuss aspects of a persons identity even further. The work of the theoretical archaeology conference (TRAC) has been exemplified as a facilitator for the transmission of current research and a platform for scholarly debate (Rogers 2011). More recently these discussions have focused on identities and theoretical debates with hot topical discussions such as BREXIT being debated (Eckhardt 2017). However, in truth these discussions of identity have only begun to scratch the surface of the different types of people whom lived in the empire. For example much work could still be completed trying to understand the various different new jobs that emerged in Roman Britain as it was in the engulfed by the Roman Empire. Approach two is on terminology One of the prevalent issues that have emerged is that ‘Romanization’ as a process by which people emulated the Romans has been dissected to the point of extreme critical analysis. People have taken various approaches to the type of terminology that should be used instead of the vulgar and dogmatic term ‘Romanization’. Some authors have gone as far as to say we are fetishizing the Romans (Dommelan 2014) whilst others discard the term ‘Romanization’ entirely (Woolf 2014). The peculiar terms that have emerged include cultural hybridity, syncretism, cultural bricolage and cultural amelioration (Burke 2008, Wallace-Hadrill 2008 pp37). This has led scholars to discuss cultural hybridity which French phases such as ‘Mondialization’ (Wallace Hadrill 2008), Caribbean terms such as ‘creolization’ (Hawkes 1999, Webster 2001) and the popular ‘globalization’ (Pitts and Versluys 2014, Hodos 2010, Hingley, 2005, 2010). The problem of this is we are stagnating the debate by failing to get to the root of the problem, which is distinguishing new methods to studying Roman archaeology and artefacts. Perspectives have shifted to third spaces between colonizers and colonized (Bhaba 1990) in which ideas as abstract as changes to fashion and personal adornment are discussed (Rothe 2012). Others have moved away from this discussion arguing that the focus on terminology is halting the discussion of people and objects in the Roman Empire (Mann 2010). Approaches focusing on architecture (Napoli 2015), biometric approaches of animals (Albarella 2002), geometric morphometric approaches to animals (Duval 2015), and choice of adoption of new types of food such as fish have become popular as the discussion moved from ‘Romanization’ to niche areas of social and practical sciences (Locker 2007). In my view we should holistically adopt a new strategy and retract from using the term ‘Romanization’ because it is stunting and stagnating the current research priorities of Roman archaeologists and move towards the increasingly popular globalization theories. Approach three the study of food, diet and presentation The study of food groups in the Roman provinces has become one of the most written about subjects of the past few years. Areas such as archaeobotany have become popular as the study of incorporating new plants and vegetables becomes popular for the study of Roman Britain (Lodwick 2016, Van der Veen 2014). Others have focused on discussing the various types of foods that were brought to Britain in the Roman period and how these food groups may have helped create the provincial landscape in terms of adoption or rejection of Roman food groups (Alcock 2002, Cool 2006). The choice to either adopt of reject food such as the taboo against eating fish in the Iron Age is only recently been highlighted (Dobney and Erynck 2006). Rather than ‘changing’ diets people selectively chose certain foods dependent on a number of reasons (some foods became very popular while others did not). There were taboo enforced food groups, which became less enforced as the Romans came and people choose to eat differently (Simoons 1994). It has been argued that certain foods were well adopted before conquest in oppidum at Silchester such as coriander, dill and olives (Lodwick 2014). One subject that has still not really been touched upon at great length is how people resisted certain foods and how this passive or active response to new foods in Roman provinces may have allowed people to express power and identity (Cooks 2009). Perhaps food groups were made popular by chefs. The idea that cooks were responsible for experimenting with food from around the empire install’s an idea that people were concerned about what they were eating and why. Some approaches have focused on different types of food such as categorizing them as high and low cuisine (Goody 1980). Can we as archaeologists study diet or are we failing this debate? As more local and small street food vendors emerged on the streets of Roman Britain would people spend loose change on these vendors who would make cheap, quick food more accessible? Is it that hierarchies developed between people who ate out and people who ate in restaurants or tabernae? And was the idea of “food porn” (popularized by Instagram and Facebook) or food plated to look good knocking around 2,000 years ago? How did perceptions on how food was served change since Roman annexation in 43 A.D? Or again is this normative response something we have created in the 21st century that cannot be compared to the past. Arguably people were still interested in how food was presented and whether it looked appetizing but was this more of a Roman phenomena compared with the Late Iron Age? What was on the plate? What colours were including in the dishes? How did presentation affect the choice to adapt, adopt or reject diets according to a Roman style of practice? Approach four sociological approaches to food and identity and context formation The study of how people choose to identify themselves through the use of certain food types has been explored and continues to be area of examination. However, new manners of studying archaeological assemblages give us insight into how it was and why people defined them the way they do. For example the adoption of new forms of material culture may have enacted as one-way people asserted their new Romano-British identities. The movement from aceramic to ceramic using and producing societies marks a defining shift from Late Iron Age society to Roman society (Cool 2006, Hill 2007:27, Matthews 2009: 15). The use of new types of cutlery and ceramics would of changed the method in which we choose to eat our food and may have allowed people to define themselves as either adaptive or hostile to Roman rule. Archaeologically it is complicated to establish behaviour from archaeological assemblages alone. Some authors have argued we should focus on the assemblages that we find and interpret them as individual indicators of ritual behaviour and treat assemblages as a whole. Often archaeological specimens are separated into pottery, animal bone, metal etc. that hinders our subsequent interpretation (Hawkes 1999). There is much we can learn from an archaeological sample and through a contextual analysis rather than separating the objects into categories. For example interpreting a post-hole as an entire assemblage of one single context rather than different types of object will inform us on human behaviour and context formation and deposition. We can aptly discuss archaeological formations and depositions but are our interpretations valid? Does the shifting change from owning you’re high and low class types of pottery (samian ware vs. black burnished pot) show people were beginning to distinguish themselves between elite and non-elite forms of lifestyle through the adoption of different forms of material culture. Approach five people of the Roman Empire It also remains that there were different groups of people within the Roman world such as freedmen, slaves, senators, women, men and children. Each of these groups would have had different taste buds and favourite food groups. They would of have different access to certain food dependent on their wealth and where they lived. People who lived in the rural landscape probably had a greater access to grain and locally produced products. Whilst people living in the cities had access to exotic imports such as luxury food groups such as expensive fruits and vegetables those in the rural countryside may have not. It may have been people ate differently dependent on what was available to them and what they could afford. For example we know that elite males had greater access to expensive products such as fish due to analysis from stable isotopes at multiple Roman cemeteries (Mulder 2013, Locker 2007). Unfortunately we have to use dichotomies to distinguish between groups of people when discussing what they would of eaten and what would have been available to them dependent on where they lived in Roman Britain (Cool 2006:116). Approach six is on the chronological focus One of the key issues that also arise from study an empire that lasted for four centuries is how people experienced the world dependent on when they lived. If our perspectives were based on the fact people who experienced the Roman Empire in the conquest phase would have had a completely different outlook compared to people living in the later phases. What type of experiences would differ for people living in the various four centuries of the Roman Empire? Would food groups have become more readily available? What sociocultural factors might people have experienced? For example, economic and financial periods of stability, rule under different emperors, periods of intense migration, periods of closer contact with the other provinces. Where there periods when trade relations where strengthened to a greater or lesser extent? Which leads us to questions such, as how can we understand these phenomena. Did these periods mean people experienced Roman rule differently and were there generational differences in perspectives on the Roman rule? And finally for the subsequent part of this discussion how does food, diet, identity and the chickens relate to these experiences, and were perspectives on the chicken different? 3.0 Chickens in Roman literary contexts in normative approaches The Roman world was not so different from ours in the respect they traded, travelled, drank wine and beer and engaged in similar activities to our own. This is to say you can use a normative approach to examine behaviour to understand people of pre-history (Renfrew 1997: 369). The following chapter will take normative responses to understand how human behaviour may have been similar in the past in respect to its domestic livestock. The use of classical texts in this respect allows us not only to get a first hand perspective on the past, but also to examine what the authors deemed significant. Parallels between current attitudes to farming can be compared to the past in this way. The human response to managing their livestock is likely to be the same; they want to maximise productivity. The same thoughts and ideas will go through the farmers mind such as economic capabilities of the farm; new forms of animal husbandry; financial costs; the requirement of an active marketplace and the importance of networking with a wider social group to maximise sales. Furthermore, the prevalence of cockfighting may have developed as a new spectrum for farmers. In addition it may have changed and shaped human behaviour and personal and group ideologies (Sykes 2012, Doherty 2013a, Doherty 2013b). Apicius’ Coqurinaria is the only surviving cook book from the Roman period. The Latin Coquinaria is literally translated as culinary in English. It was more than likely composed in the late fourth or the early fifth century (Flower and Rosenbaum 1958: 13). Medieval scholars who were interested in diet, health and nutrition preserved the book by rewriting the manuscripts of the ancient text. The book was written in a colloquial language and was aimed at all classes of people with basic recipes for every day cooking and complex dishes to be served at elitist banquets (ibid). People would have made different dishes using the various exotic ingredients including spices and herbs brought from across the Roman Empire (Van Der Veen 2015). Some authors have gone so far as to ascribe specific archaeological remains of food as specified meals found in Apicius’ cookbook (Cool 2006, 102). The book is of huge importance to the modern day scholar interested in learning about Roman diet, health and nutrition. It is also useful as a textual source that informs on the writing style of the epoch. By counting the number of times chicken and eggs crop up in the list of ingredients book I will see how significant chicken and eggs were in the recipes and therefore cooking. The aim here is too show cookbooks can help archaeozoologists and archaeobotanists to hypothesize how food was consumed; it also helps to create a methodology for creating the types of culinary dishes people may have been cooking. Figure 1 demonstrates in almost every chapter of Apicius’ cookbook, eggs feature as one of the main ingredients. They appear to be very popular and the frequency is twenty-seven in chapter IV. This chapter discusses a type of Roman dish very similar to egg custard or as the Romans call it Patina. Chicken features in seven out of the ten cookbooks and less frequently than eggs, however in book VI chicken is the most common meat in all of the recipes. Figure 1 – Histogram of chicken and eggs in Apicius’ cookbook Figure 2 –Pie chart of frequency of chicken and eggs Figure 2 demonstrates that compared to chicken, eggs are statistically more frequently observed than eggs. There are sixty recipes that feature egg whilst there is only twenty-seven that feature chicken. This suggests a profound importance of eggs in cookery rather than chicken. This is more likely because popular favourites such as pancakes, omelettes and patina use eggs. Apicius’ cookbook is just one example of a book that details a number of recipes that use eggs. There are other examples from other authors and shopping lists that have been found. For example writing tablets at Vindolanda attest to 100-200 eggs ordered for the soldiers of the legionary barracks situated along Hadrian’s Wall (Picture 1, Cool 2006, 102). The frequency of eggs in recipes from Apicius is proportionally higher than that of chicken meat. The evidence of eggs used in a large number of Roman dishes including omelette, pancakes and fish sauces suggests a profound importance in Roman cooking. Furthermore, eggs are of prime importance as binding agents in baking cakes (Alcock 2002: 46, Berry 2009). Picture 1 - Roman Vindolanda writing tablets Perhaps these men were aware of the cookery book of Apicius and were preparing patina dishes seen in Book IV for a large banquet or feast (Figure 1). Or it may be that the eggs were used to bake cakes as Cato lists a number of recipes that utilize the eggs of poultry. Some of the recipes he lists include libum, which is a cheese type cake and placenta which is another type of cake. Both of which are used in religious services (Cato 75, 76). Or it may be that egg consumption also represented a change from the usual porridge breakfast. Ancient texts discuss at length the means by which chickens should be kept and methods of fattening chickens such as feeding poultry grain and seeds soaked in milk twice a day (Pliny the Elder 71, 50, Cato 89), and the times of year when chickens should be hatched from eggs (Varro 3.9.8). It is of interest here that egg production appears to increase at a different rate dependent on the time of the year. Although taken from a normative approach, we can see from current chicken breeders how many eggs can be harvested using modern methods. This can help us to understand how economically sensible it is to raise chicken for their eggs. Egg farming could have been as a profitable business reaping great rewards to those who commercially sold eggs. If we look at modern egg production in Table 1 we can see that by the 28th week with a flock of 84 birds laying eggs a farmer could be collecting 336 eggs a week. Table 1 – Number of eggs produced per week per chicken (FAO 2003 pp5) Dependent on the breeds some chickens begin laying eggs by the age of 21 weeks and will continue for up to one year. The chicken will lay more eggs in the summer when there is more sunlight. The temperature also has a dramatic effect of the amount of eggs and the quality of eggs that can be laid. For example the optimum temperature for laying eggs is between 11-26°. If the temperature increases to between 28-32° the chickens will need an increase in water supply and the knock on effect can be that the eggs become wafer thin and are reduced in size (FAO 2003, 3-4). Pliny states “barn-door fowls, for instance; they lay, too, at all times, with the exception of two months at mid-winter… these animals, indeed, are so prolific, that some of them will lay as many as sixty eggs, some daily, some twice a day” (Pliny the Elder 74, 53). Different chicken breeds have different laying capacities and of course have the ability to produce a greater or lesser variety of eggs (FAO 2003, 1-2). Varro claims chicken eggs should be collected when they reach 25 or more and birds aged 2-3 are the best for laying eggs (Varro 3.9.8-9). Varro also details that hens should be given up to a maximum of 30 chicks, they should be evenly spread between the hens and should be fed barley cereal with cress seed mixed with water (Varro 3.9.13-14). The author even goes on to state how they should be tended, for example lice being plucked from their heads and necks and that as they grow they should be put outside when it is sunny and warm with a large net over them to protect from predators (Varro 3.9.15). Chickens can get a number of diseases from poor upkeep or environmental factors. For example, a number of conditions that can affect them include tuberculosis, rickets and coccidiosis (FAO 2003, 5-10). Pliny states there is a disease of poultry “pituita” of which he claims the cure is exposure to the smoke of bay leaves, a simple diet of leeks and spelt in water (Pliny the Elder 78, 57). Columella (VIII) even discusses the creeper chickens (a type of breed of chickens with a developmental defect that induces short limbs) he states “I do not too much approve of dwarf fowls, neither on account of their fruitfulness, nor for any other advantage they may bring, unless their low stature is pleasing to anyone” (Gordon 2015: 6). Clearly a number of disorders which relate to the animals environment could cause ill health, it may have been that animals housed in poor conditions such as in cities where poor sanitation indicated poor health of the populace meant that animals suffered a variety of diseases. Our knowledge of Roman practices of poultry husbandry is not entirely specific to Rome, for example we know new breeds of chicken were introduced to the provinces if we are believe Varro who describes various imported chicken breeds (Varro 3.9.6). Varro mentions different breeds of hens not good for breeding (Tanagrian, Median and Chalcidian) and discusses physical attributes to search for when choosing hens (Varro 3.9.4-5). Pliny even goes on to explain how cocks are very sexually aggressive, proud animals and that they will fight for the attention of females and with their ‘weapons attached to their legs’, which presumably means the spurs. He goes as far as to say they will fight to the death (Pliny the Elder 24, 21). Furthermore the author states the method to control male cocks was to have them castrated by placing a hot metal rode between their loins, an archaic method of castration (Pliny the Elder 25). According to Benecke (1993: 26) the Roman writer Columella recommends that Roman farmers practice keeping five hens to one cockerel. He also argues that if you have an assemblage of more cockerels than hens then you more than likely have people keeping chickens for their meat rather than a focus on the production of eggs. The author adds that Columella (VIII 4-5) states Romans tried to extend the egg laying period by means of adding ‘special’ food to the fodder. Clearly, the authors have detailed knowledge of chicken husbandry, breeding and tending of the hens and their chicks. However, we should be careful with our interpretation and subsequent reception of the classical textual sources. For example writers often give general points or pragmatic advice to other farmers on how to handle their animals. We should be critical of the mock humour they sometimes inject and give a little leeway when entertaining ourselves with their opinions. This is why I have chosen to use normative approaches in this respect so as to try and compare modern perceptions with classical ones. Of course for Roman Britain we should try and understand people may have farmed chickens but whether they were able to have the luxury of Roman literature on animal husbandry or if they simply learnt management strategies from generation to generation we cannot say. Hence it is important to read the classical textual sources as potential windows into the past but not necessarily accurate representations of the past animal husbandry strategies (Champion 1984). However, it is the sheer detail and number of classical texts discussing the chicken and cockerel that make them such an interesting and thought-provoking source to interpret. The detail and insight from the classical texts offers some interesting perspectives upon the human-animal relationship. There appears to be a clear human-animal relationship between the owner and the livestock that implies an intrinsic relationship of trust rather than domination (Armstrong 2010, 180). We must remember that the consumption of animals for food represents one stage in the life of the animal and we must assume that people had an intimate relationship with the creatures they cared for (Sykes 2012). However we cannot be sure how well people treated their animals. For Romans had mixed views on animals as aptly discussed by Beagon (1992, 147) “they could be kept as pets at the same time as watching the slaughter of beasts in the arena with equanimity and enjoyment”. Nevertheless how people treated their animals doesn't change the fact that a farmer would have numerous issues to consider before engaging in chicken husbandry. There are other economical factors that should also be considered. For example, before beginning chicken egg production a farmer would need to consider the following: the number of chicks to be farmed; amount of feed; cost of building a chicken coop; cost of labour to build the coop; mortality rate of chickens; potential hazards like disease and predators; other knock on effects such as bad weather. All of these factors would have to be considered before a farmer decided to begin producing chickens for their eggs. 3.1 Cockfighting in Roman Britain There is ample evidence for cockfighting in Roman Britain and this may have been one reason why cockerels were kept. Caesar’s statement in his De Bello Gallico that the Britons “do not regard it lawful to eat the hare, the cock or the goose, however breed it for amusement and pleasure” has been taken literally to mean that chickens were kept for cockfighting by numerous scholars (Sykes 2012: 162, Doherty 2013a, Doherty 2013b). This may be true, as we know that there were certain taboos over fish along with other foods in pre-Roman Britain (Dobney & Erynck 2007, Simoon 1994). There is also ample literary evidence for cockfighting in the Roman world. For example Pliny the Elder states: “They exercise a rigorous sway over the other birds of their kind, and, in every place where they are kept, hold the supreme command. This, however, is only obtained after repeated battles among themselves, as they are well aware that they have weapons on their legs, produced for that very purpose, as it were, and the contest often ends in the death of both the combatants at the same moment. If, on the other hand, one of them obtains the mastery, he instantly by his note proclaims himself the conqueror, and testifies by his crowing that he has been victorious; while his conquered opponent silently slinks away, and, though with a very bad grace, submits to servitude.” Pliny the Elder (24.21.12-18) In this passage Pliny demonstrates the virtues of the cockerel. He shows how the cockerel embodies masculinity and has both bold and brave characteristics, possibly those that Roman soldiers should embrace. He shows how the cockerel defends his honour when met with stiff competition. Pliny makes clear that the cockerel displays his masculinity by crowing to all who pass that he is the victor. Pliny goes further saying the cockerel is more masculine than the lion when he states: “So it is that these birds inspire terror even in the lion the most courageous of all animals.” (Pliny the Elder 21.21.22-24). We know that in Athens cockfighting was practiced because it celebrated victories over the Persian armies (Serjeantson 2009); moreover we have classical evidence of cockfights from Athens from Aelian, Lucian and Philo who indicate cockfights took place annually and regularly for gambling purposes (Eckerman 2012: 43). According to Eckerman (2012: 46) scenes of Greek vases with cocks are not only associated with cockfighting but more subtly with victory in general. For example, many vases were distributed for victors of the Greek Panathenaic games, which had images of cockerels on top of victory podiums coupled with the gods Athena or Apollo. Therefore this association of the cockerel was not just with cockfighting in general, but more so with festive and military victories and associated deities. The Romans always took it upon themselves to celebrate victory over other groups by holding triumphs in Rome or they simply celebrated peace by closing the gates of the Temple of Janus. The Emperor Octavian successfully closed the gates in 29 B.C. and 25 B.C. after the first and second settlement in which the senate proclaimed him first citizen ‘Augustus’ (Cassius Dio 51.20, 53.27). Furthermore in the Augsutan novel of the foundation of Rome Virgils Aeneid the gates are opened because the Trojans are at war with the Latins (Aenied Book VII). It could be that the triumph of peace was an important proclamation of Rome’s virtue. Therefore if Rome celebrated victory and peace with the same cockerel motifs as the Greeks did this tradition could have been brought to Britain through the form of cockfighting. 3.2 Cockfighting Roman Artwork This next subchapter will explore the relationship between historical art sources and their relationship to Roman history. One of the aims is to emphasize how the use of art historical sources can contribute to the discussion of the Roman Empire by providing a source of information just as useful as the literary or archaeological sources. Art allows us to deviate from the countless numbers of literary sources that are often written with tropes of personal slant. Furthermore, the representation of cockerels in Roman artwork may infer how the Romans viewed cockfighting from a different perspective. However, we should acknowledge that there are limitations to using this evidence as we do not have accurate dates of the art or we are unable to identify the names of the artists themselves. The evidence to be used in this discussion comes from the Greek Hellenistic world and the Roman world. Both have interchangeable attributes, a phenomena discussed in depth by Andrew Wallace Hadrill (2008), who perfectly displays how evocative the Greek East was upon the Roman West. In the mosaic of the two cockerels from the House of the Labyrinth in Pompeii it could be that the mosaicists depicted a candid instance in which male egos and pride are both at stake as the cockerels prepare to fight one another (Picture 2). The choice of the material used for the creation of the mosaic suggests that the mosaicists were skilful by choosing a wide range of colours. The pieces of tesserae used are around 5mm in diameter and indicate that each small piece would have had to be carefully placed onto the mosaic. It appears that this image showcases how an intense moment (the fight between the cockerels) has been masterly crafted to depict a bloodthirsty Roman sport. It may also be of importance that in this instance both cockerels are not wearing artificial spurs and this indicates the cockerel is like a bare-knuckle Roman gladiator. Another example comes from 3rd century Antioch, Turkey where the mosaic originated from the House of the Peddler of Erotes. In this mosaic (Picture 3), we see a cockfighting scene with two cupid figures. As the cockerels prepare to fight above them are the winged cupid figures awaiting the battle. According to Stewart (2004: 103) “cupid (or eros) was the son on Venus (Aphrodite) in Greek myth and religion and was represented as a boy god in Greek art as early as the 6th century B.C. But during the Hellenistic period he is increasingly depicted as a very young child – a podgy baby – often playfully engaged in adult activity.” Picture 2 – Mosaic of two cockerels preparing to fight from the House of the Labyrinth in Pompeii 79 A.D. Picture 3 - Mosaic of two cockerels fighting from the House of the Peddler of the Erotes from 3rd Century Antioch Furthermore in other examples from the Roman world scenes of cupids are seen playfully engaging in adult activity such as racing chariots on sarcophagi and dancing around wearing theatrical masks (Stewart 2008, 75). The juxtaposition offered by this mosaic is seen in a number of lights. Firstly, we have two cupids fighting their cockerels, which show child gods engaging in adult activities. Secondly, we have the symbolism of the cockerel, which is often associated with gambling, indicating the cupid figures are engaging in more adult activity. The juxtaposition would have been fitting for an adult Greek or Roman audience. Moreover, the representation of cockerel fighting is something we can see in pottery and Greek krater vases from the Greek and Roman world. The tradition of representing cockerels in this light continues well from early 6th century B.C. Ancient Greece right up to early 19th century Britain (Serjeantson 2009: 326). However, there is no evidence for art historical sources from Roman Britain of cockfighting. Pitts and Versluys (2014) argue the Roman world was one of globalization in which Rome exported Roman style and art at ‘a discount rate from the Roman world to the provinces’ through a globalising world. In this sense we can consider that mosaics of cockfighting were most likely situated in the elite palaces of Roman Britain. 3.3 Painting in the Roman world and the need for eggs Eggs may have been used for a number of reasons in Roman Britain, one being the use of eggs for wall painting. According to Davey & Ling (1982: 56) “there has been much controversy over whether Roman wall painters worked in fresco technique, or in tempera, or a combination of the two”. The egg tempera method was used by the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans (Bruce 1994). Since the painting of houses, vases and walls became popular in early Greece and Egypt it may have remained the most common method of painting until the renaissance period (Leach 2004, Lang 1991). http://kooschadler.com/techniques/history-egg-tempera.pdf According to Beeston and Becker (2014: 20) “Because painting methods involve incorporating the pigments into the surface layer of lime mortar applied to a wall or other support (fresco technique), or mixing powdered pigments with an organic binder such as wax, egg, gum, or oil (secco techniques), pigment analyses are usually complicated by the presence of mixtures of materials”. Most current analyses of paint and pigment detect the presence of organic binders; these binders are as varied as wheatpaste, egg and emulsified beeswax or sometimes a combination of all three. According to Jorge egg tempera is one of the most poplar-binding agents (2016: 2) “one research group has further analyzed the binders in wall paintings at the Villa of the Papyri, and in a painted wooden ceiling at the House of Telephus Relief, both in Herculaneum (and dating to before 79 A.D). In both paintings, results indicated the use of egg tempera”. The author goes on to cite numerous examples across the Mediterranean where egg has been used as the binding agent in paint and he states that the use of egg tempera must have been wide spread across the Mediterranean (Jorge 2016, Table 2 see page 34, Stewart 2013: 1797). In Pompeii research has shown that paintings were often executed using the tempera method (Strong 1976: 52). According to Beeston and Becker (2014: 20) “Much of what we know about paint and pigment use comes from the Greeks and Roman literary sources, including De Lapidibus by Theophrastus, De Architectura by Vitruvius, and Historia Naturalis by Pliny the Elder.” The vast amounts of wall plaster recovered from urban archaeological sites across Roman Britain may well attest to what is known as “the painting revolution” in which this innovative addition of polychrome colour to walls gave rise to new professions such as plastering and decorating. The egg tempera method employed by the Romans is explained here. This fairly simple process of painting was probably the most prominent type of painting used in Roman Britain. The technique used to create the tempera is simply: pigment + egg yolk. http://www.stormthecastle.com/how-to-make-a/how-to-make-medieval-paint-egg-tempura.htm Pliny the elder devotes twenty books to places where the types of pigment can be obtained (Pliny the Elder 35, 14-29). It involved separating the egg white from the yolk using a piece of paper or a sponge to soak up the white. The yolk was then pierced with a sharp object like a toothpick. The runny yolk was poured onto a palate and the skin discarded. The pigment was ground with a pestle and mortar, added to the yolk and mixed well. A little bit of water would make the paint go further. The paint dried quickly when applied to surfaces and a number of layers was needed to achieve a bold colour. If the Romans brought the knowledge of wall painting after the conquest we would expect to find lots of painted wall plaster on Roman urban sites. Furthermore if the egg tempera techniques were used to create and apply the paint then it would mean the painters would require a large number of eggs. One of these dramatic changes was the adoption of painting walls of the city houses, a change identifying how the ruling elite class adapted and emulated the ruling classes from Rome (Ling 1985). At the site of Causeway Lane in Roman Leicester 12.5 square meters of wall plaster were found in 6,962 fragments. The evidence came form Area 3 of the site and was found amongst construction building material (CBM) and gravel, which suggests this was from the demolition of a town house. The styles of paint vary from traditional lined patterns to more complex designs of rosettes and leaves (Ripper 1999, 293-300). Table 2 – Number of different sites and the type of painting method used from across the Roman Empire – (Jorge 2016) 4.0 Archaeological evidence for eggs and chickens in Roman Britain Recovery of egg shell typically requires intensive sieving and environment sampling of archaeological sediment. This can be done using a flotation tank in which light material, such as small fish bones, seeds of plant remains and eggshell may float to the top whilst the sediment sinks to the bottom. This is a complex process and is very difficult to do on large-scale archaeological excavations because of the amount of time, labour and effort required for the processing of the material (Stewart 2013: 1798). It is nevertheless very helpful when this measure has taken place and the evidence can be taken to up for further interpretation such as inferring poultry husbandry and breeding practices. The presence of eggshell has been cited as a proxy measure for turkey husbandry in the American Southwest. There is ample evidence that this is the case if you have thousands of eggshells found in a single context egg production can be inferred (Beachem 2007: 1612). According to Beachem (2007: 1612) “Rather than assuming that the presence of the eggshell is reflective of subsistence activity it could be that it was breeding or domestication”. However it could merely be evidence of consumption of eggs not necessarily infer production. It is difficult to separate egg production from consumption without evidence of chicken brooders, chicken bones, or chicken rearing equipment. We do not usually find evidence of whole eggs on archaeological sites yet we may find shell fragments when the soil is sieved (Cool 2006, 102). At the excavations in Roman and Medieval Causeway Lane in Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvian) large-scale environmental sampling took place to build up a bigger picture of the archaeobotany of the environment in the heart of the city. Over 2,200 fragments of eggshell were recovered of which 67.7% were believed to have come from Roman contexts (Boyer 1999: 329). To determine what types of eggshell were present, the thickness was measured under a microscope and then compared with modern examples of eggshell. In addition, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used at the University of Leicester to help determine the species of eggs. This was achieved by using the reference collection to look at the thickness in microns of the eggshell, which was cross-referenced with modern examples. Two groups were determined; one that belonged to thinner eggshells and the other thicker shells. The vast majority of the eggshells were determined to be of the domestic fowl although some could have been pheasant or duck while the thicker eggshells were identified as goose eggs. An interesting point raised by the SEM was that the eggshells from the medieval phase appear thicker which suggests the eggs could have became larger due to a change in management of chickens (Boyer 1999, 332). The evidence presented here shows there was a good supply of eggs to the centre of Roman Leicester. York (Eboracum) has a long history of archaeological fieldwork taking place in the urban centre of the city (Ottoway 1999, Phillips and Heywood 1995). It is one of the most studied sites we have, which has evidence of occupation from the Mesolithic and Neolithic (Conneller 2012 et al) and from the early Bronze Age sites (Ottoway 2010). Archaeologically, the evidence of Roman occupation in York is well documented (Ottoway 2004) and also through the classical literature (Rollason 1998). I shall use York as a case study to indicate that egg production took place in the urban environment. In the south-east district of the Roman city of York eggshell fragments of Gallus domesticus were recovered from environmental sampling from a deposit that dates to the late 2nd century A.D. (Hall & Kenward 1990: 335). Furthermore, the examples of male spurred cockerels vs. female unspurred hens from the excavations at the same site show there were at least seventeen female hens compared to three male cockerels at General Accident Road and Rougier Street York (O’ Connor 1988: 99 Figure 15). Based on the evidence O’Connor (1988: 99-100) has made the claim that poultry farming of eggs was taking place in Roman York in the 2nd century A.D. in the urban district of the south-eastern area of York (O’ Connor 1988: 99-100). This evidence of poultry bones and eggs shell fragments comes from the boundary of the city. It may be that chicken farming was tolerated here because the noise from the cockerels crowing was less disturbing away from the town centre. According to Maltby (1979, 71), “Like pigs, poultry could have been kept by house-holders in the city and by most rural farmers, being inexpensive to keep and at the same time providing a cheap source of food.” Pliny the Elder mentions that cockerels crow in the morning waking up people and sleep when the sun sets so the noise may have been a nuisance in Roman towns (Pliny the Elder 25, 37). Domestic fowl were also to be the found popular on several other Roman sites in Britain. At another urban site, the baths of Wroxeter, the bones of domesticated fowl were the most commonly found bird bones. Furthermore the sex of these bones was determined by the presence of the medullary bone, and the presence or absence of the spur on the tarsometarsus (West 1985). Although only a small sample of them could be sexed, the evidence suggests that hens were preferentially reared to maturity, compared to capons or cocks. The high numbers of mature birds recorded from the site suggest that egg production was more important than the provision of poulets for the meat. At this site it appears that hens were also preferred to males and that there could have been large scale egg production (Armour-Chelu 1997, 360). According to Maltby (1979: 66) domestic fowl dominated the avian assemblages in all periods at Exeter. There is one bias of the archaeozoological evidence of domestic fowl bones and that is small bones rarely survive and so the presence of large bird bones is more likely (O’ Connor 1991: 261). A total of 3,121 (73.64%) of the bird fragments in all the deposits belonged to domestic fowl. The percentage of immature limb bones in the Roman period taken from a sample of 294 bones was 10.88%. This would suggest most birds were kept to a mature age (Maltby 1979, 67). Also at the legionary barracks of Exeter a cockfighting ring was excavated which provided evidence of gambling paraphernalia (Bidwell 1979, 423). We should not assume that just because there is little environmental evidence of eggs that they were not eaten, rather the high percentage of bird bones should be used to indicate egg production of some scale. It would appear in in many urban parts of Roman Britain domestic fowl was a very popular food group (Maltby 1997). 4.1 Medullary bone: the archaeozoological answer? One question that remains for discussion is what other methods we can employ to detect the presence of egg production? One way in which we can investigate whether chickens were kept for their eggs is too look at the bones macroscopically and microscopically. On the inner cavity of chicken bones lies the medullary cavity an area in which bone grows on the endosteal surface of the bone. This endosteal layer on the inner sanctum of bone is not biomechanically necessary and is biologically only for the production of eggs. The medullary bone is a thin layer of bone that builds up on the inside of the medullary cavity. This thin layer of bone can have the appearance of coral spicules (See Picture 4). As mentioned it grows on the endosteal surface of the inner shaft and can easily be observed by the naked eye (Lentacker & Van Neer 1996: 491 – 492, Dacke et al, 1993, 63, Dacke, 1979). The medullary bone, which acts as a reservoir of calcium for egg production, is best seen in the larger open cavity bones including the femur, tibiotarsus and ulna. (Rick 1975, 184, Cupere 2005: 1592). There are three main ways in which you can identify medullary bone. Firstly, it can be physically observed through broken bones. This only works when you have a lot of broken bones or it requires breaking or sawing of the bones, which most archaeozoologists are reluctant to do at least until the osteometrics is out the way! (Lentacker & Van Neer 1996, Luff 1976, 306). Secondly, it can be identified using x-rays to detect its presence or absence, however this method is costly and requires a thorough understanding of radiology. Thirdly, if you have a large quantity of bones with and without the medullary cavity you can sometimes tell the difference through the weight of the bones with the heavier ones indicating the presence of the medullary bone (Rick 1975, 185-6). For the purpose of this discussion the most reliable method I would suggest is macroscopically examining bones individually to examine presence or absence of medullary bone. Picture 4 - Medullary bone (Photograph Copyright Dr. Richard Thomas) In one study Dacke emphasised that birds begin growing medullary bone 7-14 days before the egg-laying season. Furthermore he showed that birds on a calcium deficient diet would break down cortical bone to create egg shell whilst building up medullary bone so as to continue the egg laying cycle. This study showed that the medullary bone is a complex system whereby bone remodelling consistently continues throughout the life of the bird. Evidence of osteoblast and osteoclastic activity highlights that the skeletal structure of the bird is more complex than the human system and can be used to study the effects of osteoporosis (Dacke 1993, 66). Another point worth mentioning is that mature hens stop producing eggs as they get older and so the presence of large female hens is not always easily identifiable because the medullary bone may no longer be present due to post-menopausal osteoporosis (Dacke 1993: 82). This is one method in which we can archaeologically prove whether hens were kept for eggs, however we cannot say whether the eggs were kept for food or for baby chicks. Medullary bone can be used as a method of seasonally dating an assemblage in the same sense that we use eruption wear on teeth, antler shedding and growth ring analyses (Driver 1982: 252). It can also be used to determine the sex of the birds and will indicate if the bird is female, male or female and egg-laying (Ibid). These methods indicate the time of the year that the assemblage was formed. For example the medullary bone forms when birds are 14 days prior to laying eggs (usually spring) and so the evidence of medullary bone would point towards bone assemblage from the summer when most birds are laying eggs (Driver 1982, Rick 1975, Cupere 2005: 1589). Therefore the interesting question this opened is how can we accurately sex chicken bones if there is no medullary bone present? Arguably, the best way is too measure the bones so as to test whether or not the bird’s bones are the size of males (larger) or females (smaller). Of course another method is to test and see if the tibiotarsus has a spur on it. This is because all male chickens grow spurs and this is evidence that the chicken was male, however one problem of this is females can grow spurs too if they grow to old age. Biometric approaches in archaeology have been long used to sex and age animals and are an important method for answering questions regarding faunal remains. 4.2 Archaeological examples of medullary bone in the Roman Empire According to Serjeantson (2009: 282-3) if medullary bone is present in archaeological examples we can infer that the chickens were used for laying eggs. This has been shown to be apparent in examples from around the Roman Empire near the Red Sea and in Gaul. Egg laying starts in spring and after the breeding season is over the gradual resorption of the remaining medullary bone starts (Van Neer 2002, 123). The working hypothesis of Van Neer (2002) was that hens were usually slaughtered at a relatively old age and at a time of the year when egg production slowed down or stopped. As we shall see the reason we find bird bones with medullary bone is that they may be from older hens, which have been slaughtered and replaced with younger birds for egg production. At the Roman site of Berenike, in ancient Egypt on the Red Sea, a large percentage of bones had the medullary bone indicative of egg laying. Furthermore, the large assemblage of bones that were from older hens also indicates some chickens were kept until maturity. This shows a heavy reliance of the domestic chicken for eggs and possibly also meat (Van Neer 2002: 124). In Britain at the Roman site of Greyhound Yard in Dorchester the presence of the medullary bone was counted and the evidence is displayed in Table 3 & Figure 3 (Maltby 1993). The site offered up an interesting analysis because there were a large number of domestic fowl bones from the conquest phase right up to the end of the Roman period. The bones of the chickens tell a few things about the type of chicken husbandry and the times when change to chicken husbandry may have taken place. For example in the 1st century there is a bias because there are only two bones, which indicates that we can’t say much about the sex variation of number of birds laying eggs. However it does suggest a lack of importance of chickens. By the 2nd century we can make more of an educated guess about what type of husbandry was being practiced. For example the data in Figure 3 shows we have a mixed type of animal husbandry with a high kill off rate of chickens kept mainly for meat. This may be in relation to older female chickens, which were producing eggs of a lesser quality, being slaughtered in favour of younger chickens producing better quality eggs (this agrees with the classical sources). Then a more general pattern emerges from the number of chicken bones that have, or do not have medullary bone. There is a low percentage of between 16.6 -20% of chickens with medullary bone killed off from the late 2nd to 5th century. This could be typical of three different scenarios. Firstly, it could indicate that chicken kill off rates were more consistent over time. Secondly, it shows that most chickens slain had no medullary bone, which indicates they might be keeping chickens longer. Thirdly, that chicken farming in Dorset may not have been as important in the latter part of the Roman era and meat was the most important product. Overall the total number of chickens with medullary bone is 25.40% whilst without medullary bone is 74.60%. This would support the hypothesis that egg farming was not of great importance in the Roman period at this site. However, this analysis does not include a biometric perspective of the chicken femurs, which could show the majority of chicken bones are smaller and indicative of a varied sex ratio between male and female. However the percentage of spurred to unspurred poultry suggests that males were preferred throughout the Roman period as shown in Table 4 and Figure 4. Table 3 – Percentage of chicken femurs with and without medullary bone 1ST Century Early 2nd Century Late 2nd Century 3rd Century 4th Century 5th Century MB (%) 0% 37.10% 16.60% 11.50% 20.60% 20% NO MB (%) 100% 62.90% 83.40% 88.50% 79.40% 80% Figure 3 - Total numbers of chicken femurs with and without Medullary bone Table 4 – Percentage of spurred tarsometatarsals 1ST Century Early 2nd Century Late 2nd Century 3rd Century 4th Century 5th Century Spurred% 25% 65% 50% 56% 67% 75% Figure 4 – Total percentage of tarsometarsus spurred, unspurred or spur scar 4.3 The cockerel spur The cockerel grows a spur between 0-5mm a year and reaching a greatest length of around 20-30mm. Measurements of the spur are rare and this is an important feature highlighted by the work of Doherty (2013b) who investigated the size of spurs in Roman Britain. He rightly asserts that we should measure the size of spurs on the tarsometatarsus as a standard measurement (something omitted from Von Den Driesch (1976). However, one area of controversy lies in the fact that older female hens that have stopped laying eggs may have a build up of hormones leading to a growth of spurs. According to De Cupere (2005: 1589) “The functioning of the ovaries in egg laying individuals is known to inhibit spur growth. When at the end of the reproductive cycle the ovaries become ineffective and gonad hormone production ceases, spur formation may not be supressed anymore.” This is a point that has been highlighted before in previous archaeozoological case studies (West 1982), O’ Connor even states “the equation of spurred tarsometatarsi with cockerels which was once accepted will no longer suffice” (O’ Connor 1988, 99). In one study it was recognized that the presence of the female spur might occur alongside the incidence of the medullary bone. This shows that even female hens in lay season could have a spur present (Fothergill 2017, 2). Nonetheless it still remains that the presence or absence of the spur remains one of the most reliable ways to sex a chicken. For example, it has been argued that capons tend to grow larger spurs than cockerel (West 1982: 259). The author goes on to state that the presence of the spur indicates the bird is male or a capon or a female with defective ovaries, however contra to West’s assertion (1982: 259) the presence of a spur scar could indicate a female hen this no longer stands true and has now been revisited and challenged (West 1985: 12). The evidence here suggests that the presence of a spur or a spur scar is usually indicative of a cockerel or a caponized domestic fowl. Therefore the evidence would lead me to suspect that the best way to see if a chicken is male or female is to check for the presence of a spur. Unfortunately the tarsometarsus (with or without spur) is not always recovered and so other methods of sexing chickens are needed. 4.4 Archaeozoological evidence for chickens from Roman London Biometric approaches have been used since the beginning of archaeozoology to measure animal bones to answer questions. These questions relate to sex, size (allometry and cladistics) of animals amongst more complex questions such as domestication of species across continental borders (Driesch 1976). These methods have been defended as one of the best ways to answer questions about variations in size and shape of animals in the past (Albarella 2002). They are easy to complete using digital callipers or osteometrics board (O’ Connor 2000: 87). The data is easy to replicate by anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics and Excel making biometrics a very useful source of data for zooarchaeologists (Reits & Wing 2008: 147-170). Overall the straightforwardness and reliability of these methods is one reason they have not been altered or changed for over forty years. In previous studies biometrical approaches have been used to answer questions pertaining to sex variation of chickens at Roman sites. At the Roman villa site of Fishbourne it was shown by a biometrical analysis that there was a bias towards over 60% of the bones being female bones indicating probable egg farming at the Villa (Allen 2011: 344). However there is one bias of using biometric approaches and that is it does not account for size variation in respect to different breeds (Fothergill 2017: 21). Of course one method to distinguish further between breeds and size variations of chickens would be to use geometric morphometrics, which offers closer analysis of the bones using more complex methods than traditional biometrics. For a fuller discussion of geometric morphometrics and the advantages over biometrics see https://www.academia.edu/31809683/What_is_geometric_morphometrics_and_what_advantages_and_disadvantages_does_it_have_over_traditional_biometric_methods_within_archaeozoology In this study biometric approaches are used to obtain data on the sex of chickens from sites across Roman Britain. This shall now be discussed. The main purpose of this data analysis is to attempt to look at sex ratios and size ratios in the Roman period by comparing the two measurements: greatest length (GL) and smallest breadth of corpus (SC), both measurements were taken in mm. Data was collected from twenty-nine Roman sites across London These data had been collected by Museum of London Archaeology zooarchaeologists from the early 1990s and synthesised by Matilda Holmes, James Morris, and Richard Thomas as part of a City of London Archaeological Trust funded project. , which detailed the greatest length (GL) and smallest breadth of corpus (SC) of domestic fowl tarsometatarsi (measurement codes follow Von den Driesch 1976). Furthermore the presence, absence or indication of those with spur scars or of those that had formation was recorded as an indicator of the sex of the bird. The dates were organised across three general periods of occupation: Early (1st/2nd century), Middle (2nd/3rd century) or Late Roman (3rd/4th century). This data is analysed using histograms and scatter diagrams to discuss the importance of biometrics. This biometric approach can be used to obtain a clearer representation of two things. Firstly, the bones that could not be sexed based on the presence or absence of a spur could be plotted against other bones so as to see if biometry can be used to sex the domestic fowl. Secondly, the bones can be analysed to see whether they get larger or smaller dependent on the different periods of the Roman Empire. Figure 5 –Unspurred/Spurred/Not Applicable tarsometarsi from London The data provided in Figure 5 shows that the ratio of unspurred to spurred chicken tarsometatarsi is relatively even throughout the Early through to the Late Roman periods; however, it also indicates that the number of bones that did not show evidence of spur/spur scar or no spur was proportionately high particularly for the mid-Roman period. If we look at the data collected of the greatest length of the tarsometatarsus (mm) we can make a few interesting points. For example, Figure 6 shows the most frequent size of bone is between 65-70mm and the second most frequent is 75-80mm. If we look at Figure 7 we can see that the majority of unspurred chicken tarsometatarsus range between 65-70mm or below whereas spurred tarsometatarsus are between 75-80mm and above. Figure 7 has a bimodal distribution that we would expect for a sexually dimorphic animal. It also shows there is overlap between males and females. Figure 6 - Greatest Length (GL) of chicken tarsometatarsus in (mm) Figure 7 Greatest Length (GL) of chicken tarsometatarsus in mm We can also do some analysis of the size variations in general such as we can state that the total number of bones analysed here was fifty-nine. Eighteen of which were definitely male where as twenty were definitely female and twenty-one were unidentified (See Table 5). Table 5 – Number of chicken bones based on sex Periods Early Roman Middle Roman Late Roman Male 7 7 6 Female 6 7 5 Unidentified 5 14 2 Table 6 – Mean, Range and Mode of Greatest length (GL) of Tarsometatarsus for all periods Period Early Roman Middle Roman Late Roman Mean 74.91 74.7 73.49 Range 34.6 26 26.3 Mode 64.3/69/74 66 67.8 If we look at Table 6 we can comment on a few aspects of the data. For example the mean size of chicken bones appears to be very consistent at between 73-74mm. If we look at the range we see that in the Early Roman period we see the greatest difference between the bones is 34.6mm and as we move into the latter periods this range gets smaller. This indicates greater size variation in the Early Roman period. If we now look at the mode we can see less of a pattern. For the Early Roman period we have three figures, whereas for the middle and late phase we have only one mode. This is likely because for the Early Roman period the range is larger hence a more diffuse the pattern. Figure 8 - 11 are scatter diagrams showing the smallest breadth of corpus (SC) vs. the greatest length (GL) of chicken tarsometatarsus. The data shows two clusters indicated by the yellow and blue circles respectively, which suggest the presence of cockerels and hens respectively. The blue circles show the majority of the unspurred and unsexed chicken bones form a tight cluster of lengths varying between 60-72mm in GL and 5-6.1mm in SC. Figure 9 also indicates a broader distribution of sizes for spurred cockerels ranging from 70-95mm in GL and between 6-9mm in SC. If we look at Figure 9 we can see a similar representation as seen in Figure 8. Again we seem to have two clear clusters of data but this time the cluster indicated by the blue circle indicates that the majority of the unsexed chicken tarsometatarsi demonstrate clearly that they fall into the cluster that is more than likely associated with hens. There is also a tighter cluster of spurred chicken tarsometarsus possibly suggesting breeding methods which led to chickens growing to a similar size. Figure 8 - Bimodal scatter diagram from Early Roman London Figure 9 - Bimodal scatter diagram from Middle Roman London Figure 10 Bimodal scatter diagram from Late Roman London Figure 11 - Bimodal scatter diagram from all periods combined from Roman London Late Roman London shows two similar clusters (Figure 10) as seen in the other bimodal scatter diagrams; however, in this instance our interpretations are limited by the small sample size. One thing that can be said and is that there are more unspurred bones present than spurred bones. Finally, if we look at Figure 11 we can see bimodal scatter diagram from all periods combined from Roman London. This scatter diagram indicates a few points. Firstly, we have the two distinct clusters forming. The first one is almost all of unspurred and unsexed chicken metatarsals ranging between 60-75mm in GL and 5 - 6.2mm in SC. The second is a wider cluster on predominately-spurred tarsometatarsi ranging from 75-95mm in GL and 6-9mm in SC. This shows a greater degree of size variation in the spurred bones. By analysing the clusters of size variation we can assign more bones to either male (spurred) or female (unspurred) bones, which allows us to look more closely at the sex ratios of the chickens. We can also mention something about the size variation such as the average GL for both spurred and unspurred combined is 74.5mm and the SC is 6.36mm. This leads us to the conclusion that the sex ratio of cockerels to hens was fairly even. If we use the clusters to indicate the sex ratio we end up with 28 (46.42%) of the chickens as male and 33 (55.35%) of them as female birds, which is a slightly in favour of hens. 4.5 Archaeozoological evidence for chickens from the Central Midlands (NISP) Maltby’s (1997) article investigating the distribution of chicken bones on various sites throughout the Roman period in Britain highlighting how important domestic fowl were across the country by synthesizing all of the data and comparing the NISP fragments. He distinguishes the following types of settlements: major urban sites, nucleated sites, villas industrial sites, rural, military and oppidum. Domestic fowl tend to be better represented on nucleated, urban, villa and military sites compared with rural, industrial and oppidum sites, which have predominately goat and sheep bones. Nucleated and urban sites tended to show a high proportion of domestic fowl with 79% showing over 6% domestic fowl bones as a NISP. In the article, Maltby argues that over 5% chicken NISP is statistically significant. The hypothesis Maltby (1997) attempts is to distinguish is whether we have a dichotomy developing where chicken bones are more frequently found in Roman Britain. His conclusion is that more ‘Romanised’ sites have a greater frequency of chicken bones compared to ‘non-Romanised’ sites. What he does not do is distinguish between sites based on their chronological periods. This is a shame and means our data is simply for Roman Britain as a whole. The following study will this attempt to fill this gap by analysing the spread of chicken bones across four chronological periods of the Roman Empire in Britain. Information on animal bones was collected from the archaeology data services website on the Numbers of Identified Specimens Present (NISP) of animal bones from the Central Midlands. The data is copy right protected by the creator Umberto Albarella (2007). http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/animalbone_eh_2007/downloads.cfm The aim of the research conducted using the data was to investigate whether or not the frequency of chicken bones increased during the Roman period. The objective of analysing the NISP data was too see whether or not chicken became more popular as a choice of food in Roman Britain. There are four chronological groups the bones are grouped in: the Late Iron Age 1st- 2nd centuries B.C; Early Roman 1st- 2nd centuries A.D; Middle Roman 2nd- 3rd centuries A.D; and the Late Roman phase 3rd- 4th centuries A.D. The data was analysed in four ways using histograms and pie charts. Firstly, the total number of sites featuring chickens was measured and split into distinct periods. Secondly, the mean number of chicken bones from each period was worked out. Thirdly, the mean number of the total NISP from sites that feature chickens was plotted. And finally, the mean percentage of chicken NISP across each period was compared. Then the overall mean NISP across each period was compared in a table. Finally, as a percentage the mean of the chickens NISP was created as a percentage of the mean of the overall NISP. Figure 12 - Total number of sites with chicken bones in Central Midlands Figure 12 demonstrates that in the Late Iron Age there are few sites that feature chicken bones from the Central Midlands. It also shows the frequency of chicken bones is low for the Early Roman and Middle Roman period. However, it shows that by the Late Roman period there is a significant increase in chicken bones almost four times that of the earliest phase, the Late Iron Age. Figure 13 shows the mean number of chicken bones found in the Central Midlands for the four periods. The total number of domestic fowl bones in a chicken is 120. The data indicates that for the Middle Roman period the number of chicken bones drops significantly compared to the other phases. However, it does show that generally the number of chicken bones recovered from sites appears to be between 35-45 apart from the Middle Roman phase were the mean number of chicken is proportionately low at under 15 on average per site. Figure 13 - Mean number of NISP of chicken bones Figure 14 demonstrates the mean number for the total NISP (including all animals) from sites in the Central Midlands. Interestingly, in the early Roman and late Roman period we have a greater percentage of NISP than for the late Iron Age and the middle Roman periods. It appears that by the late Roman period we have nearly four times the number of bones found than in the late Iron Age. Figure 14 - Mean number of total NISP Table 7 – Chicken NISP vs. Overall NISP as a percentage Late Iron Age Early Roman Middle Roman Late Roman CHICKEN NISP Mean 36.5 39.5 14.8 48.8 OVERALL NISP Mean 426.7 1223.1 696.2 1639.2 PERCENTAGE CHICKEN 8.50% 3.20% 2.10% 2.90% Table 7 shows the same data seen in Figure 13 and Figure 14. The section at the bottom of the table shows the chicken NISP as a percentage of the whole of the assemblage. This shows that even though chicken bones were rare in the Late Iron Age the proportion of their bones that are recovered is significantly high compared to the overall NISP at 8.50%. In one study it was shown anything that represented over 3% chicken bones in the Roman period was statistically significant (Allen & Sykes 2011). If we look at the table for the Early, Middle and Late Roman phase we can see the mean number of bones recovered that are chicken is statistically quite low at between 2.10% and 3.20% which indicates that chicken was still proportionately low compared with other species of bones found on archaeological assemblages from across the Central Midlands. This suggests although domestic fowl becomes a more common food group in the diet its frequency compared to other domestic species remains low. Some conclusions that can be drawn form the facts include the fact that we have significantly high consumption of chicken in the Late Iron Age. We also can see that over the course of the Roman period chicken bones appear more common on more sites that show an increase in popularity. We can also state that this increase remains low as a NISP figure. There are a number of considerations we should think about now as to why the proportion of chicken bones seems proportionately low compared to other animals. One reason is size; the chicken bones are smaller than other large mammals and are more prone to be destroyed by taphonomic factors (Maltby 1997: 406, Sejeantson 2009, O’ Connor 2000, Reits and Wing 2008). 5.0 The symbolism of Gods, Roman religions and their association with chickens Mercury comes from the Greek god Hermes who was imported in the Roman pantheon in 495 B.C. His main attribute was being the god of commerce and trade (Rose 1948: 96-97, North 2000: 36, Poole 2010: 158, Caesar 6.17). More than 400 inscriptions are referenced to him in Roman Gaul and Britain, which supports Mercury’s importance (Henig 1984: 22). At the sanctuary of Uley, in Gloustershire, a statue of a head from the god Mercury was recovered from the site excavation along with altars, written tablets and votive figures all offered to the god Mercury. Alongside the statue was a carved stone chicken, which presumable sat around the base of the statue (Woodward and Leach 1993: 114). There was an extraordinary high representation of chicken bones in the temple outnumbering the offerings of goats and sheep (ibid, 260-263). It is also worth noting that fewer than 1% of the birds showed medullary bone and less than 3% fell into the biometric category of female leading us to the fact that over 97% of the chickens slaughtered were male. Whether or not this was in relation to simply sacrificing or cockfighting is questionable. We cannot state whether these chickens were ritually slaughtered or killed and eaten which adds to the question of whether they were bred for food or sacrifice. The popularity of the Roman god Mithras amongst the Roman army is another reason why the chicken may have had an increased importance in Roman Britain (Serjeantson 2009: 351). The association between the cockerel and Mithras is attested to in iconographical representations on the tauroctony in mithraia across the Empire. The evidence of mass chicken sacrifices at a temple to Mithras in Tienen in Belgium attests to one single sacrifice of almost 300 chickens at the temple shrine (Lentacker 2004). In the temples of Mithras in London the chicken was the most frequent species of animal ritually slaughtered in the first phase of occupation around 240 A.D (King 2005, Shepperd 1998). The reason for the sacrifice at the sanctuaries may have been in relation to the status of the cockerels crowing at daybreak as Pliny cites how cockerels bring in the new day with their hooting and clapping of the wings (Pliny the elder 24.21) The chicken can be seen on numerous iconographic representations of the god Mercury and Mithras and archaeozoological evidence suggests that chicken sacrifice was associated with these religious deities (Toynbee 1973: 257). Chickens eggs have been found in religious contexts in York and Colchester as offerings to gods and may have symbolized the end of one life and the beginning of the next. (Alcock 2002: 47). The funerary association of poultry and its importance in Roman graves as Britain’s close neighbour, the Netherlands, has been exemplified by evidence for 28 whole bird briskets found in a Roman urn in Nijmegen (Lauwerier 1993a). Bird remains are also found in other ritual contexts such as in burials with metal and terracotta figurines of hens and cockerels, which may have been associated with the god Mercury who kept the dead away from chthonic deities in the underworld (Lauwerier 1993b). According to Lauwerier (1993b: 78) bird bones are the second most common grave find is associated burials in the Roman period. It may be that the chicken sacrifices associated with burial rituals marked it as a sacred animal in the Late Iron Age and the coming of the Romans continued this long held tradition (Hill 1995, Morris 2011, Philpott 1991). Cockerels may have been made to fight as a ceremonial marker for the deceased as Pliny the elder cites that there was often cockfighting at gladiator matches (Pliny the Elder 24-25. We know from other sources gladiator fighting was made popular at burial rituals where animals or slaves where made to fight at the funeral of the deceased. The Romans were quite speculative about their gods, of course they were pragmatic in most things such as government, law and order but they inherited some aspects from their Greek predecessors such as the respect of the divine nature of the gods. In one passage from Livy this is demonstrated when he slyly comments on the attributes of sacrificial animals “People nowadays may ridicule religious rituals ‘What does it matter’, they say, ‘If the sacred chickens don't eat or are slow in leaving the coop’. These are trivial things. But our ancestors made Rome great by not despising these trivial things, whereas we profane all rituals as if there was no longer any need for peace of the gods” (Livy VI. 41 in Ogilvie 1986: 24). Clearly, the author emphasizes the duality of the gods they are really only there if one holds bone fida with them. It is interesting how the subject of the chicken is drawn upon as a parallel with the nature of the gods and demonstrates the virtue of the chicken. 6.0 What is symbolic about the cockerel brooches of Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D in Britain? Around the 1st century B.C. numerous brooch types emerged, this is exemplified in the archaeological record and is in sharp contrast from the 3rd century B.C. when only a few brooch types were present (Hill 1997). The adornment of the clothing with these brooches marked a shift in the prevalent attitudes of the people as newly acquired goods from continental Europe gave rise to an influx of different types of material culture (ibid). The coming of the Romans in 54 B.C. marked the first stage of contact with Britons. For over one hundred years contact increased between the Mediterranean traders and British people. After the initial conquest phase of Claudius in 43 A.D people began re-negotiating their Romano-British identities with new material culture, which aided this transition and helped people identify themselves with the Romans. Sociologists have long argued that in times of civil strife people attempted to renegotiate their identities through the display of different ornaments and body art (Hill & Jundi 1997, 126). The development of different types of brooches became prominent before Roman annexation and can be seen as a way of personally displaying and communicating another form of social and group identity (Hill & Jundi 1997, 127). Isochrestic variations of material culture (Sackett 1986) is one mechanism by which people developed a medium for communicating personal and social identities (Hill & Jundi 1997, 130). By Isochrestic I define this as equivalent in terms of function but stylistically different in terms of individual elegance, panache and design. Stylishness has always been used as a channel for personal communication whether through clothing, body art, jewellery or tattoos. The process of emulating elites through acquisition and adoption of material culture would have continued during the Roman invasion. As the development of new types of material culture took place across the country we see a number of diverse types of brooches emerging. There are a total of 22 different types of bird brooches that have been found across the Roman Empire (Hattatt 2000: 360). Some of them resemble special birds such as the chicken, cockerel, peacock, and ducks. A number of them closely resemble the chicken in shape and form and could be representing an association with the god Mercury. The brooches may have also symbolize masculinity as we know chickens were long used in cockfighting or it may be that they were emblematic of birth and new life. The interpretation of the use of the brooches will follow an analysis of the regional distribution of the brooches that have been found. The question that remains is why would someone wear a cockerel brooch and what might this have meant for them in terms of their identity. A number of possible reasons are now considered: It was a gift from someone they cared about and it reminded them of the person (Apparudai 1986). It was associated with the religion and symbolized association to a deity such as Mercury (Crummy 2007). The cockerel was a national symbol of Gaul and was named gallus so could represent the association the person had with Gaul (Fothergill et al 2017) The person may be involved in the tending of cockerels and could have been a chicken farmer. The person could have been involved in cockfighting and wore the brooch so show their personal identity as a cock trainer. Part of a group identity whereby they showed then association with the group of people involved in organizing and show casing cockfighting. The data for the discussion of brooch types comes from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), a scheme that provides archaeologists with data on coins, brooches, pins and various metal ornaments. Around 30,000 individual metal detectorists every year find around 400,000 metal objects (Worrell 2007, 372). Not all of them record their finds and estimating the number of people who don't report them is not known (Worrell 2007, 372). One of the major weaknesses of the PAS is metal artifacts found are often recovered from non-stratified contexts and often do not reveal anything about the site or context. (Worrell 2007, 372) In a study of all the Iron Age artifacts found on PAS it has been strongly argued that there is a clear bias of more finds towards the Eastern counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Kent and Suffolk. This appears to be based on the fact there is a strong relationship between archaeologists and metal detectorists (Worrell 2007, 376). According to the data collected between September 1997 and April 2003 exactly 651 Iron Age brooches were recorded using PAS between these years (Worrell 2007, 375 Table 1). The biases of the data could reflect a greater amount of archaeological fieldwork taking place in the South and East of England. According to Collingwood (1980: 300) “the chicken brooches more usually found in eastern counties of England than any other areas of England”. They could just represent greater communication between detectorists and archaeologists in these regions under question. Furthermore specific projects investigating specific artifacts such as the Kent Iron Age coin project have seen a greater number of finds documented and recorded. However, it does appear that there are more finds from the East and South of England. This may represent increased habitation of the Iron Age with increasing occupation, aggregation and urbanization of these regions (Fernandez-Gotz 2014, Sharples 2014, 228, Thomas 2008, 20, Hill 2007, 26). Figure 15 – Percentage of regional distribution of chicken style brooches According to Figure 15 we notice that a significant amount - nearly half of the chicken style brooches or 48%- were found in East Anglia and the East Midlands areas. While a further 43% were discovered in the South East, Greater London and South West areas. This included the major settlements around the region such as Londium, St. Albans, Colchester, Lincoln and Leicester. Yet in Yorkshire and Humberside we have a fewer examples totalling just 9%. However in the West Midlands, North West and North East we have no examples of chicken brooches. The lack of finds in the North and West of Britain away from the military establishments would indicate cockerel brooches were popular amongst the citizens of the country and probably not the military. Chicken brooches have more often been found in large towns and civitates capitals rather than in rural sanctuaries. Sometimes they are found buried in graves with human burials (Crummy 2007, 225). In one example a cockerel brooch was found with chicken bones underneath the skull of the deceased. As was mentioned earlier Mercury was said to protect the dead from demons and guide them to the afterlife. Burials with chicken ornaments and bones would no doubt have been used to escort people to the underworld. Three cockerel brooches were found buried in Colchester. One found close to Temple in Balkerne lane in a suburban sanctuary and another found with a grave nearby (Ibid). Sometimes cockerel brooches are found with other items associated to Mercury such as a figurine of the god himself and of his priestess Rosemerta amongst chicken bones and other figures zoomorphic in design (ibid). It could be that the burials with objects relating to Mercury could be from people who were priests of the cult of Mercury. In Figure 16 we can see a closer analysis of the county distribution of chicken style brooches. Figure 16 - County distribution of Chicken style Brooches At the rural sanctuary of Mercury in Gloucestershire we have 5% of chicken brooches found from the temple. Both Lincolnshire and Norfolk feature the highest percentage of brooches with 19% respectively. In Hampshire and Wiltshire we also see a high percentage with 14% of the brooches found in each county. Finds in other parts of the country were certainly more rare. They included Leicestershire, West Sussex, Surrey, Gloucestershire and North Yorkshire all on 5%. This may be due to the regional biases explained earlier such as the relationship between archaeologist’s and metal detectorists. One of interesting things to come out of this study is that in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. the cockerel/hen shaped brooch are one of the most frequent finds in the South and East of Britain. Figure 17 – Frequencies of Brooch types found using PAS in Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D Figure 17 shows the chicken brooch ranks the 3rd most popular type out of 26 different styles of brooches discovered. The data shows a number of other brooch types that became popular, some of which are zoomorphic in design. Most popular are the Trumpet (46) and Headstud (40). However, these artefacts represent a small proportion of the total number of Roman brooches recovered from the country which is in excess of 27,000. However, the sample strongly suggests the chicken type brooches, with 29 in total, were amongst the most popular in early 1st and 2nd century A.D Roman Britain. Picture 5 shows a Romano British zoomorphic brooch in the shape of a chicken with a domed body inlaid with enamel wings and triangular neck. There is a comb on top of the slightly worn stylised head along with a ring and concave eye. It has a flat, almost hemispherical tail with missing point. The size is 21x 33mm (including tail) x 32mm in height. https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/238453 The predominance of the Hattatt type 167 shows that this one could have been particularly popular and its production and usage demonstrates an importance of this particular ‘Brand’ of brooch. 7.0 Conclusions This dissertation has attempted to show that the evidence for egg production can be difficult to establish hypothetically, however counting recipes that include eggs in Apicius Coquinaria is one method. Maltby (1979) suggested it was impossible to show how important a commodity eggs could have been, Sykes (2012) added it was probable; but I believe it was certainly the case eggs were produced and consumed in urban environments. The evidence of chicken bone fragments from the Central Midlands shows twenty-five sites with chicken bones in the later Roman period compared to just six the Late Iron Age. It could show a correlation to the popularity of eating chicken and eggs in the Late Roman period as showcased by Apicius’ cookbook. Chickens were kept in Roman cities for their eggs and for their meat as has been shown in examples from London, Dorchester, Wroxeter, Leicester and York. A detailed discussion of methods for identifying eggshell in archaeological deposits has demonstrated that eggshell can be recovered when environmental sampling is undertaken. I have shown the importance of the medullary bone as a useful tool for archaeozoologists to use when trying to sex chickens. This study has also shown how we can use biometric approaches in archaeozoology to distinguish allometry, cladistics and sexually dimorphic animals. According to the evidence of size of tarsometatarsus from Roman London the size of chickens remained fairly constant in the Roman period. In the early Roman phase there was a slight variation in the Greatest Length (GL) whereas by the later Roman phases there was less change suggesting poultry was of a similar size possibly due to a favoured poultry breed. Furthermore the observations of the bimodal scatter diagrams from London showed a predominance of hens over cockerels. Different perspectives can be drawn from the evidence from the Dorchester site at Greyhound Yard, which showed that less than 20% of poultry had presence of medullary bone from the 2nd to 5th century A.D. This suggests chicken were kept to an older age when they had stopped producing medullary bone (stopped laying eggs) and were slaughtered for meat. In addition, sexing evidence from the tarsometatarsus showed incidence of the no spur was 39% whilst 59% had spurs or spur scars. This implies some of the poultry here were kept for meat/eggs and others for cockfighting. The evidence of a cockfighting ring and gambling material culture in the Roman military base of Exeter supports this. This paper has also added to the current debate on Roman cockfighting using art history and classical literature. Literary sources including Varro, Pliny the Elder, Cato and Columella indicate the Romans brought new methods of poultry husbandry and egg farming. The authors discuss the management of livestock, chick rearing, healthcare, feeding, prevalent diseases, different breeds and food sources for the poultry. Some of it is told in a humorous and entertaining way. Pliny the elder and Caesar both demonstrate the symbolic importance of cockfighting. Caesar states the Britons would keep cockerels for fighting, amusement and pleasure. Whilst Pliny the Elder claims that cockerels were bold, masculine and fighting animals. Cockfighting was brought across by the Greeks to the Romans and fought its way across the west. Popular in European cultures cockfighting can be evidenced in Greek vases, krater cups, artwork and mosaics in Pompeii and Turkey. The cockfighting in Roman Britain would have needed a supply of strong fighting birds raised in Britain. Chicken material culture in the form of brooches has been analysed to understand the temporal spread. This study has provided different perspectives highlighting the chicken brooch were the 3rd most popular brooch type in the 1st and 2nd century A.D. One reason for its popularity is that the chicken brooch was symbolic of the cult of Mercury and the high proportion of chicken brooch types from the South and East of Britain could show that their may be more shrines associated with the god in this region. It could also be that this form of material culture could have been in association to the cockfighting culture we know developed in the country. This dissertation has new brought new perspectives on the evidence of eggs in tempera painting in Roman cities such as Pompeii and Herculaneum and was probably used in fine art in villas and houses in Roman Britain. In commercial archaeology thousands of fragments of wall paintings are recovered and further research into the binding agent used to make the paint could provide evidence of paintings completed with the egg tempera method. Further investigation of wall painting methods and binding agents could provide the evidence to see how extensively the egg tempera method was used in Roman Britain. This is a suggestion for further research. Words: 18137 Primary Bibliography Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico, Translation Merton, A. 1850. 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Websites http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Italy/Campania/Naples/Naples/photo625199.html https://www.academia.edu/31809683/What_is_geometric_morphometrics_and_what_advantages_and_disadvantages_does_it_have_over_traditional_biometric_methods_within_archaeozoology http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/Y4628E/y4628e03.htm http://www.stormthecastle.com/how-to-make-a/how-to-make-medieval-paint-egg-tempura.htm http://kooschadler.com/techniques/history-egg-tempera.pdf Appendix 1 Number of identified fragments (NISP) for data collected from the Central Midlands (Albarella 2007) Date period TOTAL NISP Taxa Chicken NISP ER 17 Chicken 17 ER 41 Chicken 41 ER 30 Chicken 30 ER 33 Chicken 33 ER 122 Chicken 122 ER 10 Chicken 10 ER 10 Chicken 10 ER 32 Chicken 32 ER 78 Chicken 78 ER 96 Chicken 96 ER 3 Chicken 3 ER 2 Chicken 2 LI 44 Chicken 44 LI 6 Chicken 6 LI 2 Chicken 2 LI 53 Chicken 53 LI 137 Chicken 137 LI 1 Chicken 1 LI 13 Chicken 13 LR 3 Chicken 3 LR 1 Chicken 1 LR 60 Chicken 60 LR 64 Chicken 64 LR 43 Chicken 43 LR 45 Chicken 45 LR 17 Chicken 17 LR 75 Chicken 75 LR 12 Chicken 12 LR 2 Chicken 2 LR 8 Chicken 8 LR 239 Chicken 239 LR 1 Chicken 1 LR 4 Chicken 4 LR 3 Chicken 3 3LR 57 Chicken 57 LR 10 Chicken 10 LR 13 Chicken 13 LR 4 Chicken 4 LR 8 Chicken 8 LR 28 Chicken 28 LR 3 Chicken 3 LR 491 Chicken 491 LR 10 Chicken 10 LR 1 Chicken 1 MR 1 Chicken 1 MR 1 Chicken 1 MR 21 Chicken 21 MR 38 Chicken 38 MR 41 Chicken 41 MR 9 Chicken 9 MR 15 Chicken 15 MR 3 Chicken 3 MR 5 Chicken 5 Appendix 2 Medullary bone from Greyhound yard Dorset (Maltby 1993a) Femur Early 1st and 2nd Cent Late 2nd Cent 3rd Cent 4th Cent 5th Cent Total Medullary Bone   13 2 5 6 1 29 No Medullary 22 10 23 23 4 85 % Medullary Bone   37 17 18 21   25 Appendix 3 Types of chicken brooch and quantity found across sites in England Type Number Aesica variant 1 Aucissa 2 Bird 1 Bow 4 Bow and Fantail 4 Chicken 29 Colchester 6 Disc 6 Dolphin 10 Dragonesque 7 Duck 2 Flat Cruciform 1 Headstud 40 Horse and Rider 1 Knee 2 Langton Down 2 Lozenge Plate 1 Lugged disc 1 Plate 7 Polden Hill 8 Saw Fish 2 T-Shaped 21 Trumpet 46 Tutulus 1 Umbonate 4 Wirral 1 Appendix 4 Regional locations of brooches from places in England County Number Barnsley 4 Blaenau Gwent 1 Buckinghamshire 2 Cambridgeshire 2 Cheshire East 5 Cheshire West and Chester 4 Cornwall 27 County Durham 5 County of Herefordshire 1 Darlington 1 Derbyshire 1 Doncaster 4 Dorset 1 East Riding of Yorkshire 55 East Sussex 1 Essex 4 Gloucestershire 10 Hampshire 3 Isle of Anglesey 2 Kent 5 Lancashire 2 Leeds 2 Leicestershire 3 Lincolnshire 45 Monmouthshire 3 Newport 4 Norfolk 4 North Yorkshire 22 Northamptonshire 8 Nottinghamshire 3 Oxfordshire 3 Rotherham 2 Somerset 2 Staffordshire 1 Suffolk 5 Surrey 1 the Vale of Glamorgan 2 Trafford 1 Wakefield 4 Walsall 1 West Berkshire 1 West Sussex 2 Wiltshire 5 Worcestershire 1 Wrexham 4 AR 7007 AR 7007 2 1