Abstract:

The archaeological excavations at Althiburos (Le Kef, Tunisia) revealed a long occupation from the 10th century BC to the Late Antiquity (5th century AD). This article presents the results from the zooarchaeological analysis of mammal bones. It focuses on the relative frequencies of the species, as well as the mortality profiles and biometry of the main domesticates. The results are contextualised in the process of increasing social complexity attested in the site, and are compared with other zooarchaeological studies on neighbouring areas – Northern Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. This macro-regional comparison shows significant differences between the Moroccan and the Tunisian and Eastern Algerian sites regarding species representation during the Iron Age and Roman times: the former have much higher relative frequencies of cattle, whereas sheep and goats predominate in the in the latter.