## 1 Introduction  
Humans are exposed to radiations from natural and artificial sources in their life environments [1; 2; 3; 4]. Natural radioactivity is due to the presence of cosmogenic and primordial radionuclides in the Earth's crust [5; 6; 7], and it provides the greatest contribution to the dose received by the population [8; 9]. Artificial fallout radionuclides, such as \({}^{137}\)Cs, are derived mainly from global nuclear tests conducted between the mid 1940s and the 1980s, as well as from nuclear accidents [10; 11]. There are three ways of exposure to ionizing radiations for humans: external gamma rays, inhalation of radon as well as other radioactive nuclides and the ingestion of radioisotopes through food and water [12; 13; 14; 15]. In the last case, in particular, concern about radioactivity levels in food samples is very important in order to safeguard human health [16; 17]. In fact, food intake is usually the most important pathway, through which natural and anthropogenic radionuclides can enter the human body [18; 19]. Accordingly, the estimation of radionuclide concentrations in different foods and diets appears to be crucial for estimating the human intake of these radionuclides [20]. The natural radioactivity in food mainly comes from \({}^{40}\)K, while uranium and thorium daughter products are usually present in traces [21]. When ingested radionuclides are distributed among body organs (according to the metabolism of the involved radioisotope and the specific type of organs), each of which is typically characterized by different radio sensitivities [22], they can induce potential harmful effects, including neoplasia and genetic mutations at somatic and germ cell levels, respectively [23,24]. As a matter of fact, natural and anthropogenic radioactivity has been already extensively quantified in foods and, in particular, in different types of meat from various places [25, 26, 27, 28], but there are little data on meat samples from Italy. Meat is a very important food, as it supplies valuable nutrients for health [29]. It constitutes an essential _building block_ of a well-balanced and healthy nutrition, as it holds high levels of protein, vitamins, minerals and micronutrients crucial for growth and development [30,31]. Moreover, wild animals are bioindicators of environmental pollution, as game meat can be contaminated, mainly in areas heavily polluted by radioactive fallout, by the radiological hazards that circulate in the food chain between soil, plants and wild animals [32]. After the Chernobyl accident, bovines with increased radioactivity levels were detected across Europe and, since that time, the analysis of radioactivity content in bovine meat has been part of the environmental radioactivity monitoring network of the \"National System for Environmental Protection in Italy\" [33]. In the light of the aforementioned considerations, the present article is devoted to the estimation, for the first time, of the radioactivity content in bovine meat from the Reggio Calabria district, Calabria region, Southern Italy. Of note, there are no articles in literature referring to the radioactivity measurement in bovine meat of the investigated geographical area. High Purity Germanium (HPGe) gamma spectrometry measurements were carried out, with the aim to first provide information on the background specific activity of the \({}^{40}\)K natural radioisotope and contribute to the creation of databases on natural radioactivity. Moreover, the investigation of the \({}^{137}\)Cs content in bovine meat allowed for the evaluation of the residual impact of nuclear weapon tests and the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents in Southern Italy.