So many pigs

[Ca Putt]

Interesting!

Would you like anymore information about Celtic livestock? I would be happy to help.

Oh, please do! More specifically I'd like to know if this Celtic pig is what is so commonly depicted in celtic culture rather than the wild boar. I was also curious about the Wildbret-Cattle-Pig ratio but I pretty much answered that myself while I formulated the question^^

[cahtush]

Did the celts not have cats? :<

[Ludens]

Did the celts not have cats? :<

According to Wikipedia, the matter is in doubt. The first depiction of a domesticated cat in western Europe is from around ~100 AD (in Aquitaine); but the article cites a paper suggesting that the Britons may have had them before the Romans arrived.

[Brennus]

Interesting!


Oh, please do! More specifically I'd like to know if this Celtic pig is what is so commonly depicted in celtic culture rather than the wild boar. I was also curious about the Wildbret-Cattle-Pig ratio but I pretty much answered that myself while I formulated the question^^

This is a very good question, one which archaeologists have in fact attempted to address. More than any other animal, the pig is depicted in Celtic artwork (followed in frequency by deer, horses and birds). In some cases it is very easy to identify the depicted swine as a wild boar, however, due to the nature of many of the pieces of artwork this is impossible. As noted above, the Celtic pig shared many features with the wild species; tusks, hairy back, lean frame etc. Thus the appearance of these features on pieces of Gallic artwork cannot be used to identify one or the other. Nor can we expect Celtic smiths to have been so precise as to have taken note of the size of the skull of the animals they were depicting. The only clue is the tail. In domestic swine the tail is curly, as domestication results in a reduction in the number of vertebrae in the spinal column thereby causing many domestic animals to have shorter or curly tails, in wild boar the tail is straight. However most depictions of pigs do not include the tail, therefore we cannot be sure what animal is being depicted.

At the end of the day its up to the individual to decide what is being depicted; domestic pig or wild boar. Personally I would go for wild boar.

I do not know this word "Wildbret". What is it?

Did the celts not have cats? :<

The Gauls certainly didn't. The cat, along with the donkey and rabbit, was introduced by the Romans. Curiously the Scythians in the Bosporous, as a result of contact with the Greeks and Persians, had acquired the cat by the start of EBII, however they did not pass it on to their Celtic neighbours, altough they did provide the Celts with chickens.

According to Wikipedia, the matter is in doubt. The first depiction of a domesticated cat in western Europe is from around ~100 AD (in Aquitaine); but the article cites a paper suggesting that the Britons may have had them before the Romans arrived.

The domestic cat which we keep today is a form of the Egyptian wild cat. However, as many of you will already be aware, Europe has its own form of wild cat (unsurprisingly termed the "European Wild Cat"). This species is still extant in many parts of Europe, including Britain although based on a recent study it appears that the British wild cat will be extinct within the next few years. It is not impossible that the Britons did domestic their native species of wild cat, but they do not appear to have done so on a wide scale.