The zooarchaeology of cult. Perspectives and pitfalls of an experimental approach

Abstract

A broad variety of ritual behaviours involve the killing and/or consumption of domestic as well as game animals, and are functionally assigned to most important social procedures and ceremonies such as religious worship, activities of public administration or funerary rites and very often also to subsistence-oriented sacrifice. Material remains indicative of these ceremonies reveal specific aspects of the ritual procedure, but their significance is always dependent on the degree of scrutiny that has been spent during archaeological excavation and more so in the analysis of the finds. Focusing on ritual patterns in Mediterranean antiquity, the remains of burnt offerings and agglomerations of caprine horn cores are attested frequently by the zooarchaeological record. Even when literary descriptions of all of these sacrificial activities are available, obvious uncertainties about the actual procedure of burning meria and osphys and of the consecration of goat horns made experimental efforts necessary. Experimental approaches characterize a well established methodological tradition in archaeological and historical research, not only enhancing our understanding of poorly handed down evidence of ancient life, but also allowing the feasibility of reconstructive suggestions to be judged. On the other hand, obtaining evidence by means of experimental studies always has to take into account potential and maybe biasing phenomena of convergence. Talking in terms of evolutionary biology, the phenotypically similar appearance of archaeological findings and experimental results has to be understood as the outcome of two distinctly evolved and necessarily different processes.