Who Ate All the Thrushes? Roman Urban Street Food Consumers as well as Elites

Abstract

The hard parts of animals that commonly preserve on archaeological sites can inform on the diets of past human communities (Egeland 2018). Beyond understanding of general sustenance, food can be a symbol of cultural identity and expression and can reveal diverse ways in which communities interact with their environment and each other (Messer 1984). Zooarchaeological studies of taxonomic abundance, skeletal part representation, taphonomy, demography, and context can provide detailed insights on food production, preparation, and consumption, as well as sometimes associations of status and social access to a resource (Twiss 2012). In this issue, Valenzuela (2025) critically analyses a unique assemblage that brings fresh light to the diversity of social contexts for the consumption of thrushes in Roman Europe.

The assemblage derives from a cesspit associated with a food shop (taberna) in the Roman city of Pollentia on Mallorca (Valenzuela 2025). Thrushes are the most abundant birds amongst the assemblage recovered. Osteometrical analysis reveals the song thrush (Turdus philomelos) as the most likely species match for the archaeological material (Figure 1), although other thrush species could also be present. With its archaeological context, the analysis of skeletal representation and taphonomy also supports a commercial kitchen waste disposal interpretation. Valenzuela argues that the thrush assemblage aligns well with the expectations of a food retail assemblage, for example, with the removal of the sternum to flatten the birds and enable rapid cooking for fast street food.

The study also argues that the migration of song thrushes in large numbers to Mallorca in the winter months would have made wild bird exploitation a predictable seasonal resource. This indicates an example of the adaptability of urban food economies and communities and how they may have exploited the local ecosystem to make cities more sustainable for themselves, as is known from contemporary contexts (Bharucha and Pretty 2010; Garekae and Shackleton 2020). It also adds an original case study of wild-caught foods to our understanding of the diversity of products sold by urban retailers (Ellis 2018, 228–239) and the wider patterns of Roman food production (Kron 2012).

As Valenzuela outlines, scholarship has traditionally linked thrushes with the upper echelons of Roman society, due to descriptions in classical sources of them as a delicacy consumed by elites: a picture challenged by the Pollentia evidence. Beyond the rich details of the case study itself, this meticulous analysis is an excellent example of how archaeology can help illuminate the lives of non-elites (e.g., Carroll 2000) and combine with historical sources to reveal wider and more representative patterns of past behaviors.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.