A Macaque's Burial from Late Antique Iulia Libica

CONTROLLING THE PYRENEES: A MACAQUE’S BURIAL FROM LATE ANTIQUE IULIA LIBICA (LLÍVIA, LA CERDANYA, SPAIN)

Oriol Olesti,1 Jordi Guàrdia, Marta Maragall, Oriol Mercadal, Jordi Galbany2 and Jordi Nadal

Abstract

The remains of a primate’s burial (a Macaca sylvanus, or a Barbary Macaque) were discovered in 2001 on the site of Les Colomines (Llívia), comprising the skeleton of the animal and some objects arranged as an offering. These offerings included decorated metallic pieces and some bronze military belts typical of the Late Roman period. The grave can be connected with the late antique phase of occupation of Iulia Libica in the 5th–6th c. A.D., and with several military episodes that occurred in the Pyrenees during this period. The macaque may have belonged to an officer. Some of the osteological and biometric studies on the macaque are presented at the end of the paper.

Introduction

Llívia was a Roman city located in the middle of the eastern Pyrenees, at an altitude of 1,220 m above sea level, and in a natural pass between southern Gaul and the Ebro Valley. This pass followed the course of the Segre River. Llívia now lies on the border between France and Spain. Ptolemy mentions the city as Iulia Libica, the sole polis of the Cerretani, and Pliny the Elder describes the Cerretani as Iuliani and Augustani who possessed Latin rights.3 There is a limited corpus of Roman inscriptions in the region, and a recently discovered civic inscription naming a member

1 Olesti-Vila’s research was funded by “Programa Nacional para la movilidad de profe- sores de Universidad e investigadores españoles y extranjeros” (2006), “Programa mobili- tat del Professorat, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona”, Project HUM2007-64250/HIST, “Vencedores y vencidos: imperialismo, control social y paisajes antiguos”. GDR AREA, Generalitat de Catalunya. 2 Jordi Galbany’s research was funded by the Spanish DGICYT BMC2000-0538 and CGL2004-0775/BTE projects. 3 Ptol. Geog. 2.6.68; Plin. HN 3.3.22.

A. Sarantis, N. Christie (edd.) War and Warfare in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives (Late Antique Archaeology 8.1–8.2 – 2010–11) (Leiden 2013), pp. 703–731 704 oriol olesti et al. of the gens Manlia, which may be connected to an important presence of this gens in the Province of Narbonensis.4 Between 1997 and 2001, several excavations were carried out in Roman Llívia by J. Guàrdia (Arqueociència SC SL),5 in the sector called ‘Les Colo- mines’. Previously, Roman remains were only known through casual findings or minor interventions. The recent Les Colomines excavations, however, identified both an important public area of the urban centre (zone ‘A’) and a private quarter (zone ‘B’), both dating from the Augustan period to the 5th–6th c. A.D. It was during these excavations that the burial of a Barbary Macaque was found and connected with the structures dating to Late Antiquity.

The Archaeological Context: The Macaque’s Burial

The burial of the macaque was found in the portico area of the ‘A’ zone of the Roman city of Llívia, close to an early imperial public building which was re-used in Late Antiquity (fig. 1). The burial lay outside room 4, immediately (1 m) east of wall 26, and in the former covered zone of the portico. This Barbary Macaque (Macaca sylvanus) appeared in stratigraphic unit (US) 74, lying just under floor layer US 8 (fig. 2); the burial was cut into US 10 (a late antique ground surface) and US 23 (a collapsed layer of the early imperial building). The grave measured 1 × 0.25 m, was oriented east-west, and had a preserved height of 15 cm (fig. 3). The upper part of the grave and the contemporary level of occupation, or floor, were lost. The skeleton of the cercopithecus was in situ, almost complete, and measured 78 cm high; the skull was in a lateral position, the hands clasped over the pelvis, and the legs laterally bent. As shown by the osteological and biometric studies (see Appendix below), this macaque was a male sub-adult, probably in the last stages of its growth, and had not suffered any episodes of alimentary stress. The anthropic and deliberate origin of the grave is shown by the digging of the burial cutting, the disposition of the macaque’s body, and especially by the deposition of several objects to accompany the Barbary Macaque.

4 IRC III; Rodà and Olesti (in press). 5 S. Aliaga, J. Campillo, M. Grau, M. Maragall, A. Rojas.