Standardized pork production at the Celtic village of Levroux Les Arenes (France, 2nd c. BC): Evidence from kill-off patterns and birth seasonality inferred from enamel delta O-18 analysis

The pig predominates the zooarchaeological assemblage of the second Iron Age settlement of Levroux Les Arenes, in a context characterised by intensive craft and trade activities. The pattern of pig mortality profiles (targeting two-year-old animals), standardized butchery cut-marks and the under-occurrence of ham-bearing bones suggest that there was standardized pork production potentially designed for trade. This hypothesis was investigated through enamel delta O-18 analysis, allowing the seasonality of pig births to be determined and the reasons for a particular age class in the kill-off patterns to be explained. Results reveal that pig births were spread across more than half a year, suggesting that slaughter was not seasonally constrained, but was performed to target a specific age class and weight/size at death, thus supporting the hypothesis of standardized pork production in Levroux Les Arenes. For the first time, the stable isotope approach- sequential delta O-18 analysis in pig incisors developed on a modem reference set- has been performed on an archaeological assemblage, after methodological adaptation. The results constitute the first zooarchaeological evidence of such a standardization of meat production from the second century onwards in Gaul. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.