1 Animal bones and the dietary identity of military and civilian groups in Roman Britain, Germany and Gaul Anthony King I The arrival of the Roman army in AD 43 can be regarded as one of the best examples in early British history of rapid, indeed, often violent and traumatic cultural interaction. A self-contained and distinctive arm of the Roman state found itself confronted with ethnic groups that, while not completely unknown, were alien in many aspects of their culture. In dress, language, living conditions, kinship structure, social hierarchy and many other details, including diet, the Roman legionaries would have found little to identify with easily. Indeed it could be said that the Roman invasion force was the first representative of a new, and to many of the British peoples, a dangerous and different ethnic group whose cultural traditions in their fully-developed Mediterranean form were beyond easy absorption. The sequel to the Invasion was concerned amongst other things with a search for accommodation and compromise between these cultural traditions in a process – Romanization – that has long been recognized as one of the most important dynamic elements in the social history of Roman Britain. Romanization, however, is a term that implies a one-way flow of information and ideas, and it has been clear to many that such was not the case, particularly with regard to the army. The contra-flow of non-‘oŵaŶ ideas to the arŵLJ has ďeĐoŵe kŶoǁŶ as ďarďarizatioŶ, aŶd the distiŶĐtiǀe contribution of the so-called ethŶiĐ uŶits aŶd partiallLJ-Romanized troops to the imperial military system has long been recognized. What, then, have concepts such as Romanization and barbarization to do with diet and the subject of this paper? Food, it can be stated as an obvious preliminary premise, fulfils cultural as well as functional needs. Diet not only maintains the body in good health, but also maintains cultural, ethnic and group identities (Goody 1982). Thus, to take but a single example, a modern breakfast in Britain is generally different from one in France, Germany or America. Timing, numbers involved, the spaces used for eating, the implements, ingredients, and of course the recipes are all vital constituents that make up the ceremonial of eating. Unfortunately it is not possible to investigate all these constituents when it comes to military and civilian groups in Roman Britain. Points of distinction in eating habits between these two groups have to rest on the two archaeologically definable aspects of implements and ingredients. By implements is meant pots, knives, etc., and by ingredients is meant bones, shells and seeds. The spaces used for eating are also a possible subject of study, but current knowledge at the moment is too ill-defined to be able to pursue definite conclusions. Clearly, to deal with both implements and ingredients in a paper of this kind would be impossible except on a very superficial level. Therefore, only one type of evidence which relates to the latter subject will be examined - the animal bones. As a group, bones have a number of advantages over other classes of material when it comes to an inquiry of this kind. They survive in profusion, are for the most part direct evidence for eating habits, since the vast majority of bones are ultimately