Dear Aharon,
To augment my last response (which I think I sent off-list by mistake), I
would agree with Laszlo somewhat. I would also add that I don't think that
you should see food remains as a passive reflection of what people ate; food
plays an important part in display (think about feasting for example), and
as such actively contributes to identity. This applies to ethnicity etc as
well as status.
Also think about more than just body part representations; age, presence of
certain species, diversity, and ratios of wild and domestic animals may also
be important.
The full reference to the article I mentioned earlier is:
Ashby, S. 2002. 'The role of zooarchaeology in the interpretation of social
status. A discussion with reference to medieval Europe', In A. Pluskowski
(ed.)'Medieval Animals', Cambridge: Archaeological Review from Cambridge 18.
You may also be interested to hear that there was an entire session devoted
to zooarchaeology and social status at ICAZ in Durham last year. I remember
Anton Ervynck talking about 3 types of site in medieval Flanders. I'm sure
people on the list will remember more details.
Hope this helps
Steve Ashby
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