Animal bone remains from the temple on a podium at Saepinum (South Italy)

The town of Sepino (Campobasso, Molise) is located in the Tammaro valley along the ‘tratturo Pescasseroli-Candela.’ The animal bone comes from the temple on a podium found in the south-eastern urban quadrant, in levels dated to the first half of the first century AD. Only domestic ungulate species have been identified, among which pigs and cattle are prevalent, whereas Ovis/Capra and horse remains are very rare. Bone remains derive in general from portions of the carcass with little flesh (skull and lower limb). In the lower levels of preparation of the podium floor, bone remains associated with the coin deposit were recovered: a left portion of a skull with the horn core and a whole scapula, with different types of butchery marks, belonging to a cattle and a scapula fragment of an adult pig.The bones, suggesting an animal sacrifice, were probably part of complex ritual practices that could be linked to foundation rites (defunctionalization/purification) of the temple building

French horn · Horse · Skull · Temple · Ungulate · Zooarchaeology · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks