Roman Tunisian dietary patterns as a feature of Romanitas: an archaeozoological approach

Abstract

It has been said that the Roman Empire was one of the greatest empires of antiquity. At its height, it spanned the entire Mediterranean basin, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Near East, each territory contributing with its customs and specificities. In this melting pot, dietary preferences were modified, diversified and, sometimes, replaced. With this paper, we aim to study Roman dietary patterns in Tunisia, an area that has been the object of little academic scrutiny and for which only a few studies are available. We investigate this topic with an archaeozoological approach. The relative frequency of taxa, body part representation and kill‐off patterns of faunal remains from 16 pre‐Roman and Roman Tunisian sites shows that, in Tunisia, dietary patterns were modified as a result of the Roman conquest.