From the wetlands to the farmyard: Osteometric approach to the presence of domestic geese and ducks in Zuid Holland, 150–1700 AD

Abstract

The history of domestic ducks (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) and domestic greylag

geese (Anser anser domesticus) remains poorly understood. This is mainly caused by

the difficulty of identifying archaeological bones as domestic due to the existing

overlap in sizes. A recently published osteometrical methodology is applied that suc- cessfully allows to identify domestic forms and distinguish between anatid species with more confidence. Four archaeological assemblages from the Zuid Holland prov- ince in the Netherlands are reanalyzed, ranging from the Roman period to the 17th century AD. It is determined that domestic geese were present in the Netherlands since at least 160–230 AD and domestic ducks since at least 585–725 AD. The latter might also be present in the Roman assemblage, but the evidence is inconclusive. Domestic spe- cies constitute only a small percentage of the total consumed anatids and do not sur- pass 15%–20% in any case, which is mainly caused by the weight of wildfowling in the Netherlands. Chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) were therefore much more prev- alent than domestic anatids in all assemblages. Taphonomical analysis did not show substantial differences between wild and domestic anatids. The sample size consid- ered in this project is likely too small and biased to accurately detect any kind of evo- lution through time.