Stella Macheridis. Animal Husbandry in Iron Age Scania, with a Catalogue

The Iron Age in south Scandinavia (c.500 BCE and 1050 CE) brought about numerous changes, affecting the region in diverse ways.Animals undoubtedly played an important role in this dynamic period, but more research is needed to fully understand how the keeping and use of animals interacted with societal and environmental developments.The meat provisioning of settlements at the time largely relied on animal husbandry.Livestock also served as a source of renewable products such as milk, wool and draught power.However, this new summary by Macheridis illustrates a great diversity in the taxonomic composition of assemblages both in time and space.The main diachronic trend identified is a relatively sudden transition from an emphasis on cattle in the Early Iron Age, to the increasing use of pigs and also sheep at later settlements.The study shows that animal remains is of key