Husbandry practices among Iron Age communities in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula

In this paper, we aim to understand the socio-economic significance and the nature of husbandry practices among the Iron Age communities that settled the Middle Tagus Valley, in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula. The literature on these societies is vast, including several recent monographs, but has mostly focused on the cultural aspects of material culture, settlement patterns, chronology, and the palaeoenvironmental context. In contrast, the socio-economic information that can be retrieved from faunal assemblages has been relatively overlooked. Through the zooarchaeological study of the bone assemblages from seven archaeological sites, we aim to characterise the nature of husbandry practices and analyse how patterns of change that we see during the First and Second Iron Ages, such as the significant increase in the number of pigs (Sus scrofa), can help us understand better the socio-economic dynamics of these human communities.