Britain
This region has many faunal remains a ssemblages (Fig. 8), and the new data in the Appendix, Table E, reinforce the conclusions previously drawn in King (1978; 1984), which only need to be set out in outline here. It is possible to show that the Gallic/German pattern, probably already established as the military dietary pattern, became the standard for dietary change in the new province (King 1984, 190-2, 198). The indigenous dietary pattern in the Late Iron Age is largely one of high sheep percentages (Hambleton 1998). The sites in Britain show that the high cattle/high pig pattern correlates with the apparent 'Romanized' nature of the sites. There is a gradient towards higher average cattle and pig percentages that goes in the sequence; rural settlements, villas, secondary urban centres, urba n sites, military sites, legionary sites (Table 3; King 1984, 189-90; 1999, Fig. 1). This appears to show that the urban, military and legionary sites set a dietary pattern, presumably derived from Gaul and Germany, that was emulated by social groups seeking to become more Romanized. This was a process that achieved some success by the late Roman period, since the high cattle/high pig pattern eventually comes to dominate all site types by the late Roman period (King 1984, 193-4). However, there was always a residual dietary pattern that looked back to the pre-Roman high sheep assemblages. Many rural settlements (i.e. non-villas) retained this pattern to some degree, and it is interesting to note that in the post-Roman period, there was ultimately (but not immediately) a more general reversion to high sheep/goat percentages in bone assemblages (King 1978). In this respect, Romanization was not complete, and as in other provinces, regional patterns were able to retain a significant hold on the diet.
As for other regions, there are some individual sites worthy of mention. Fishbourne, a large and exceptional Mediterranean-style villa, is one of the few British sites to display the high pig 'Roman' pattern (Grant 1971). This seems to indicate that the inhabitants of this imported villa-type also imported their dietary styles from the Mediterranean or Gaul as well. Other sites with high pig percentages are less easy to explain, and include an early industrial area at Leicester (Brown 1985), an early pottery-making settlement at Ower, Poole harbour (Coy 1987a) and the late-4th century villa at Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire (Payne 1997). The early sites may be linked to Gallic dietary preferences, possibly in the form of Gallic personnel present at these locations. This is similar to the relatively high pig pattern of some high-status late Iron Age sites, such as Braughing, Hertfordshire (King 1988c; 1984, 193), which may also have Gallic links.