The project will look for the reasons, timings and regional variations in the response (resilience or adaptation) of animal husbandry practices to the socio-political changes, including the progressive diversification of the production, the decrease of livestock size, the generalization of extensive or free range feeding regimes, and the limited mobility of livestock. The project will:

• Undertake a thorough investigation of livestock (cattle, sheep and pig) body size and shape from the Late Roman period to the Early Middle Ages. An on-line database with biometrical raw data will be created and made accessible to other researchers at an online free repository.
• Integrate the zooarchaeological data with stable isotope analysis to investigate changes in the ways livestock was managed (diet and mobility).
• Strive to understand the chronological and regional variability of the consequences of the collapse of the Roman Empire and of the gradual process that led to the birth of medieval economies using a comparative approach to the two European regions.