Market strategies in the Roman provinces: Different animal husbandry systems explored by a comparative regional approach Maaike Groot ⁎, Sabine Deschler-Erb IPNA, University of Basel, Spalenring 145, CH-4055 Basel, Switzerland abstract article info Article history: Received 29 May 2015 Received in revised form 26 August 2015 Accepted 2 October 2015 Available online 23 October 2015 Keywords: Animal husbandry Agrarian change Roman period Roman villas Farming Netherlands Switzerland Zooarchaeology The Roman occupation led to urbanisation, trade and population increases in the northwestern provinces, which caused an increased demand for food. The adaptation of agrarian regimes to satisfy this increased demand is still little understood. Zooarchaeological data from two regions were analysed in order to identify and explain broad patterns in animal husbandry in regions that are known to have had a different development. Such a systematic and direct comparison of zooarchaeological data from two regions in the Roman Empire has not been carried out before. The data set contains 128 assemblages from 81 rural sites in the Lower Rhine region in the Netherlands and the northern part of modern Switzerland, with a total of over 68,000 bone fragments of cattle, sheep or goat and pig. Analysis revealed differences in species proportions, with cattle and horse more important in the Dutch research area and pig and chicken in the Swiss research area. Slaughter ages revealed further differences in exploitation, with a larger focus on meat in the Dutch research area, and a larger emphasis on arable farming, transport and industry in the Swiss research area. The Swiss research area also shows evidence of more intensive pork production. Cattle increase in size in both research areas, but are generally larger in the Swiss research area. The differences in animal husbandry can be related to different modes of agrarian production, with a larger scale of farming and a higher extent of specialisation found in the Swiss research area. The conclusion of this study is that while changes in animal husbandry occur throughout the Roman Empire as a result of economic and demo- graphic developments, different regions responded in different ways. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 1.1. Objective and research questions The majority of the population of the Roman Empire was involved in agriculture (Drexhage et al., 2002, 59; Scheidel, 2012, 1). Indeed, it can be argued that the success of the Roman Empire can be attributed to the success of agrarian production. To satisfy the demand for food, agrar- ian production in the provinces had to adapt. Farmers could respond in several ways: by intensification, expansion or specialisation. All have been recognised for the Roman period (e.g. Deschler-Erb, 2006; Deschler-Erb and Akeret, 2011; Groot, in press; Hesse, 2011; Kreuz, 2005; Lepetz, 1996; Peters, 1998). Within the Roman Empire, there existed vast differences in how farming was practised. These differences mainly result from differences in the scale, organisation, extent of spe- cialisation, and degree of diversification of the farms. Some regions, such as the lowland of Switzerland, saw the development of villas: agri- cultural businesses that produced food (mainly crops) at a large scale. In other regions, such as the central part of the Netherlands, villas were rare, and rural settlements consisted mainly of small farms. How such different regions – with different traditions, cultures, political situations and landscapes – adapted their agrarian regimes after the arrival of the Romans is still little understood. This paper explores the differences in animal husbandry in two regions in the northwestern provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superior (the Lower Rhine region in the Netherlands and the northern part of modern Switzerland (Fig. 1)). The main objective of this paper is to discover how the animal hus- bandry regimes of the two research areas developed during the Roman period, whether the trajectories were similar, and if not, how they dif- fered and why. This objective will be achieved by addressing several more specific research questions. First, what was the relative importance of the main domestic animals? Second, what products were the main do- mestic animals exploited for? Third, do the relative importance of the main domestic animals and the products they were exploited for differ between the two research areas, and are there changes over time within each area? And finally, are there differences in the size of cattle between Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 4 (2015) 447–460 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: maaike.groot@unibas.ch (M. Groot), sabine.deschler@unibas.ch (S. Deschler-Erb). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.10.007 2352-409X/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/jasrep