Zootherapy is the practice of using animals, animal parts and animal products to treat or prevent human illnesses. Although practised by societies globally and through time, ‘Western’, ‘scientific’ perspectives have obscured zootherapy and hindered our understanding of it both generally and in the archaeological record.

My research will investigate the evidence for zootherapy in Roman Britain to determine whether it is present archaeologically. This will involve exploring zootherapy’s role in Roman attitudes to health and healing and the reasons this has been overlooked in studies to date. I plan to review evidence from religious, domestic and military contexts, and to identify zooarchaeological material that could be associated with zootherapeutic activity from the case studies of Fishbourne Roman Palace, Vindolanda, and Venta Icenorum (Caistor St. Edmund, Norfolk).