Herd mentality

For decades archaeozoological reconstruction has been aimed at reconstructing animal keeping and herd management strategies from food remains recovered from prehistoric settlements. In spite of the increasing awareness of taphonomic loss and alarming examples of poor representation at documented historic sites, animal remains are still often discussed in grandiose, often demographic terms of animal husbandry. It is only recent interest in the patterns of meat consumption (e.g. in studies of feasting and household archaeology) that has emerged as a missing link between the usually scanty osteological evidence and animal keeping by prehistoric peoples. The logical correlation between these two cannot be understood without considering both technical and social dimensions of prehistoric meat consumption as will be illustrated by examples from the Carpathian Basin adjacent to the northern Balkans.