Sheep and goats taxonomic abundance trends in 1st millennium CE southern Italy: Multilevel bayesian modelling of NISP datasets

Abstract

The 1st millennium CE represents a period of significant change in the agricultural landscape of southern Italy. Sheep and goats are among the most common faunal remains recovered from archaeological excavations of this period, but the contribution of these animals to the agricultural economy (particularly wool production) is often discussed through textual sources. This paper synthesises caprine taxonomic abundance trends using a Bayesian multilevel modelling approach that employs a beta-binomial distribution to address the problems of overdispersion and unequal assemblage/group sizes. Our models contribute directly to the problem by suggesting a period of change in livestock management practices around the 4th and 6th centuries CE, when the region's shift to cereal farming appears to be accompanied by an increase in sheep and goat numbers.