The raw, the cooked and the burnt: Interpretations of food and animals in the Hebridean Iron Age

The Iron Age settlement at Sollas, North Uist, Scotland, provides an unusually varied set of data relating to food and the role of animals in society. By comparing the evidence of food residues on pottery with animal remains from middens, foundation burials and cremations, structural patterns emerge which throw light on the relative status of domestic species. Sheep and cows are treated differently, with sheep being mainly huried, and cattle cremated. This patterning enables a speculative world view of the inhabitants to be constructed, and further analysis shows that mature cattle were classified differently from younger animals. It is suggested that these normally hidden structuring principles cause difficulties for the convenzantine to Ottoman times (ca. 10th-19th centuries A.D.) will be discussed, as well as the cultural changes in dining manners in that period. It is the intention of this paper to approach this evolution of wining and dining habits in an interdisciplinary perspective, in which archaeological data, textual sources and iconographical information will be combined.