Economy and society of the Remi and Suessiones in Gallia Belgica during the last two centuries BC through the prism of archaeozoology

Abstract

The Remi and the Suession territories, in northern France, are well known from an archaeological point of view thanks to the extensive excavation campaigns in the region of the Aisne Valley over the past 30 years. Focusing on the last two centuries BC – a crucial period for the Gallic peoples, right before the Roman invasion of Gallia Belgica – reveals evidence of extended urbanised sites, specialised production processes and complex social organisations. These results lead us to consider the Remi and the Suession populations not as barbarians as ancient textual sources tend to describe. Through the study of faunal remains accumulated on several archaeological sites of both territories, specific social behaviours linked to well-organised peoples emerge, for whom animal husbandry has become, over time, an important resource of production and trade, allowing them to develop economical and political alliance over borders. This study, adopting a territorial approach, examines the trading networks of animal resources for the Remi and Suession people to reach a better understanding of these complex societies. It also aims to expand our vision of Gallic communities by raising questions about animal husbandry in various regions of Gaul, such as Britain, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Keywords:

• Late Iron Age
• Animal husbandry
• Archaeozoology
• Oppidum
• Northern France

Acknowledgements

My thanks goes especially to Ginette Auxiette and Patrice Méniel for having freely shared their data with me, to Patrick Pion and Pascal Ruby for their valuable advice on the intra-site analyses I have conducted on both Condé-sur-Suippe and Villeneuve-Saint-Germain oppida and also to Michael Ilett, Richard Thomas and Andrew Fitzpatrick for their final proofreading of this paper.

ORCiD

Pierre-Emmanuel Paris http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6063-1707

Notes

1 Much of the data comes from faunal studies carried out by Auxiette, some of which are still unpublished.

2 The method is based on the study of modern animal populations examined with the mathematical principles of allometry. This is set out in detail in my thesis (Paris 2015a, 2015b) and on www.beyondbones.fr.cr.

3 This category includes both small farmsteads and the so-called ‘larger enclosed settlement’ (Figs. 1 and 10) because from an archaeozoological perspective, these types of settlement have a similar function.

4 As a result the analyses of the MNI and meat weights are not possible for this site.

5 Concerning the farming of large mammals, we can suppose that it was based on a strategy of semi-captivity. Indeed, the standards for the creation of the oppida are enlightening: sources in the vicinity for watering and plains for grazing.

6 In French in the text: ‘[…] les lieux d’élevage restent dans l'ombre’.

7 We talk here about ‘potential’ of production, avoiding voluntary questions on meat cuts exportation: those kinds of trades are extremely hard to emphasise in archaeozoological studies. As a matter of fact, estimations made in this paper do not necessarily reflect real consumption made within the different sites.

8 It should be noted that although the weight of horse meat is not considered in this paper, it represented about 10,000 kg of meat for Condé-sur-Suippe. Those estimations have been reached on the basis of all the animals consumed at the site at the most important slaughtering phase observed for each of them (between 2 and 3 years old). This undoubtedly creates an over-estimation of the weight but the aim of the analysis is only to think in terms of potential, not as an absolute estimate of consumption.

9 Villeneuve-Saint-Germain is the only site of the Suessiones to provide a significant amount of mandibles exploitable for ageing cattle. The data for other rural are poor, as shown in Fig. 6.

10 Characteristic marks observed under the paws and skulls of dogs have been recognised as proof of furriery (Paris 2015a, 2015b).

11 A fully detailed work on the taphonomic impact of the soils on each major bones of both oppida is available on my thesis (Paris 2015a).

12 See the body mass repartitions realised on cattle, pig and goat on www.beyondbones.fr.cr.

13 This hypothesis is in accordance with ancient written sources and with the global process of circulation of other goods observed on those kind of settlements: ironworking (Bauvais 2007, 422), pottery – particularly wine amphorae (Poux 2004, 388–391) – and potin coinage (Gruel et al. 2013) among others.

14 The identification of these big animals was based on metric analysis principally of metapodials (Paris 2015a, 2015b).

15 During the Gallo-roman period, the morphology of large mammals in Northern France increased considerably as Lepetz has shown (Lepetz 1996).