Provence
Another Mediterranean area of interest is the Provincia (Gallia Narbonensis), especially to the east of the river Rhône (Fig. 6). Analyses from Marseille (Jourdan 1976: Leguilloux 1994) and other sites (Columeau 1991; 1993) show a pattern of very high sheep and goat percentages. This was also regarded as noteworthy by Strabo, who refers to the importance of sheep and goats to the Ligurians (IV,6,2). A strongly regional dietary pattern seems to be established here, which displays little of the 'Roman' pattern, and appears to refer back to local and Greek influences from the second half of the 1st millennium BC. It is interesting in this respect that Greek assemblages in the Aegean, of both the Roman period and earlier, are often sheep/goat dominant (see Greece). Presumably, it is a process of Hellenization rather than Romanization that is paramount in the diet of this region, which appears to last right through the Roman period.
Not all the sites in Provence display the high sheep/goat pattern, however. Several Iron Age oppida and Roman-period rural sites have a pattern with relatively high percentages of pig bones (only a little less than sheep/goat percentages), and a reasonabl e representation of cattle bones, too (Lepetz 1996, 122, 124). This is also a regional dietary pattern, not dissimilar to northern Italy, Spain and the rest of Gaul (Lepetz 1996, 124), which may represent those sites where the influence of Hellenization was less.
An interesting exception to the main grouping is a series of urban assemblages with high pig percentages. They all come from Fréjus (Columeau 1991, 69-74) except for one group with pig bones as high as 82% from Aix-en-Provence (Leguilloux 1997a). Both these towns were Roman colonies, and may well have had a significant population of Italian or Roman descent, especially in the case of the military base at Fréjus. This probably accounts for the 'Roman' pattern at these sites, very similar to the norm for western central Italy.
Another exceptional grouping is a small number of sites with high cattle percentages. Two of them are villas in the Var region, La Garde (Columeau 1989) and Les Laurons (Leguilloux 1989). In both cases, it is the latest, 3rd century AD phases that display this grouping, which has led Leguilloux (1989, 322) to suggest a shift to more intensive rearing of cattle on some late Roman sites. This can be seen on other late villa sites in the Three Gauls, and can be linked with a general trend to greater consumption of beef in the northern provinces in the later Roman period (see below). What is intriguing for the sites in the Var is that this phenomenon is manifested so far south, whilst at the same period, nearby Marseille (Jourdan 1976) is consuming a markedly sheep/goat meat diet.