'From the dead to the living': a critical reappraisal of the secondary products concept (original) (raw)

'From the dead to the living': a critical reappraisal of the secondary products concept

Most zooarchaeological studies of secondary products work on the basis that their extraction increases the value of living animals, resulting in disincentives to slaughter that may be detected through kill-off patterns. This reasoning entails a tacit assumption that slaughter strategies reflect only the tangible benefits of livestock, a premise which is manifestly false given that herd animals frequently serve as prestige items, units of wealth, and markers of identity, even where supposedly raised for meat alone. Coupled with concerns such as herd size, security, and growth trajectories, this realisation undermines the basis on which exploitation for milk, wool, and traction is inferred. Rather than abandoning efforts to detect use of secondary products in prehistory, this paper argues that we should expand the concept to include both tangible products and intangible benefits such as prestige and the ability to participate in exchange. Both are important for the role of animals in human society, they are likely to be interlinked, and they cannot be reliably separated zooarchaeologically. The social value of keeping livestock is not wholly dependent on the material benefits, however, and may indeed have created the conditions for the adoption and refinement of dairying, traction etc. as much as vice versa. If domestication entails a change in focus from the dead to the living animal (Meadow 1984), then the use of secondary products represents a continuation in this direction.