ABSTRACT
The multiplicity of human-animal relations, their symbolism and association with the social domain, ritualised practices and classification systems have hardly been tackled in archaeological literature. Pigs are very efficient producers of energy. Pigs tend to be investigated in terms of their energy value, mechanical and industrial usage, mass meat production and slaughterhouses. In traditional pastoral economies, goats are used more often as milk producers than sheep. Anthropological accounts provide interesting evidence regarding different apprehensions of sheep versus goats. The classification and categorisation of animals marks out the confines of the social and symbolic realm of human-animal relations. The cognitive approach focuses on ‘how objects were named and how those names were grouped into larger units’. The ethnoscientific model of folk classification is highly formalised and is based on the study of language, in particular phonology and grammar in native languages.
