Ageing Bones through Butchery Methods #1: The Iron Age

Ageing Bones through Butchery Methods #1: The Iron Age

As part of my course in Msc Osteoarchaeology, I have been researching a site called Westward House near Fishbourne. As part of this research I have been looking at identifying who occupied the site from the way they butchered animals which can be seen on the surviving animal bone. The way an animal is butchered varies from period to period. This was first recognised by Maltby (2007) who noted distinct patterns of Roman style butchery, that was unique to the period due to the appearance of specialist butchers for the first time. 

                  For this blog I have looked at the most common type of butchery found on bones from the Iron Age period. To do this I took the most detailed Iron Age butchery analysis available (Wilson 1978) and looked at whether the patterns noted, were reflected on other Iron Age sites, to create a few ‘tell-tale’ signs of an Iron Age butcher. 

Note: The following ‘signs’ have been developed for Cattle due to that being what my research at Westward House is focusing on. I haven’t tested this on other species yet! Some of these signs may also apply to other periods, however if a lot of these signs are occurring they do give a good indication that they are e.g. more likely to be Iron Age than Roman.

Sign #1: The Skull

                               The skull is commonly found in Iron Age deposits due to complete inhumations often being placed at the bottom of pits and ditches. The Iron Age hillfort of Battlesbury Bowl found a number of skulls, a number of which contained evidence of butchery. Cut marks were found around the cranium, eye socket/zygomatic and below the horn cores. This pattern was also found on skulls from Abingdon and Maiden Castle. This has been interpreted as the skinning of the skull to be used as decoration, e.g pole axed or hung.

                               Another sign to look out for on the skull is transverse cuts below the condyles of the mandible and cuts on the maxilla which were used to remove the tongue and cheek meat. This is different from the Roman period, were large cleaver marks are more commonly seen in these areas.

Sign #2: The Scapula

                               The scapula/shoulder blade is often a  focal point of butchery due to it often being used to disarticulate the upper limbs. The analysis of the Abingdon Iron Age material showed that small cut marks were common just behind the glenoid cavity in Iron Age remains. This is a pattern also seen at Maiden Castle and Battlesbury Bowl.

Figure 1: Scapula showing where the small precise cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

     Sign #3: The Long Bones

                            

                             Long bones show a similar pattern to the scapula, with small fine cut marks being seen around the articulations of bones, for the purpose of disarticulation and meat removal. Common areas where fine knife cuts are seen are the distal Humerus (See figure 2), the Proximal Ulna and Radius (See figure 3) and proximal Metapodials. This method of butchery also appears on Iron Age animal bone assemblages such as Abingdon, Maiden Castle, Norse Road and Battlesbury Bowl. 

Figure 2: Diagram of the Distal Humerus showing where the small precise cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Figure 3: Diagram of the Proximal Ulna showing where the cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Figure 4: Diagram of Proximal Metapodials showing where the cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Sign #4: The Astragalus and Calcaneus

                          The final, and one of the most distinct, Iron Age butchery marks is from the Astragalus and Calcaneus bones. When the Astragalus and Calcaneus are articulated (as shown in figure 5), a large number of transverse cut marks are seen, particularly on the anterior Astragalus. This is a pattern seen on Iron Age sites such as Maiden Castle and Abingdon where they were noted as being ‘prolific’ (Wilson 1978). 

Figure 4: Diagram of the Astragalus and Calcaneus showing where the cut marks were noted from the Abingdon assemblage. Wilson 1978.

Other Iron Age butchery methods have been noted and are worth a mention such as the trimming of the vertebral column and cut marks around the articular areas of vertebrae. However the few ‘Signs’ outlined give a good indication of where typical Iron Age butchery can be seen, and shows how the analysis of butchery can be used to date a bone assemblage.

 Although it is possible that e.g. cut marks on the astragalus can be from the Roman or Medieval periods, when a large assemblage contains a lot of these signs it is likely to be Iron Age. Furthermore, another interesting aspect about Iron Age butchery is the lack of chop and cleaver marks, with small cut marks often being the only type of butchery being seen, almost being as distinctive as the signs outlined above.

Bibliography/Further Reading

Armour-Chelu, M., 1991.  The Faunal Remains.  In: Sharples, N. Maiden Castle: Excavations and Field Survey 1985-1986.  London: English Heritage Archaeological Report. 19, 139-151.

Maltby, M., 2007. Chop and Change: Specialist Cattle Carcass Processing In Roman Britain. In: Croxford, B., Ray, N., Roth, R. and White, N. (Eds.) TRAC 2006: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Wilson, B., 1978. Methods and Results of Bone Analysis. In: Parrington, M.,1978. The Excavation of an Iron Age Settlement, Bronze Age Ring Ditches and Roman Features at Ashville Trading Estate Abingdon. Oxfordshire: Oxfordshire Archaeological Unit Report 1.

The Westward House Project: The Aims and Objectives

The Westward House Project: The Aims and Objectives

         I have always been interested in the Iron Age/Roman transitional period in my local area of Chichester and Fishbourne, so for my Master’s degree dissertation I wanted to look at something zooarchaeological in the area. Fortunately I was presented with the opportunity to do this by Fishbourne Roman Palace, who introduced me to the site of Westward House.

         The site of Westward House is located nearby to Fishbourne Roman Palace, however the activity there pre-dates the palace itself.  The dating of the site currently relies on pottery evidence, with early imported Roman Pottery and Late Iron Age coarse pottery dating features to around AD 30. Usually this site would be interpreted as being occupied by Iron Age inhabitants, due to it predating the Roman Invasion of AD 43, however a military building found directly underneath Fishbourne Roman Palace has led to some authors to suggest that the Roman Military had settled in the area before the invasion. 

Figure 1: Site plan of Westward House (In Box) showing the nearby military granaries underneath Fishbourne Roman Palace. Allen 2011

The Roman Military remains underneath Fishbourne Roman Palace consist of timber framed buildings and ditches, interpreted by Cunliffe (1998) as granaries used by the military. The dating of the military phase at Fishbourne is poor, even though the site has the potential to pre-date the Roman Invasion. Due to the close proximity of Westward house to the military building underneath Fishbourne, it has been suggested that the two sites might be part of the same large military complex, which if that is the case, could prove that the Roman military were in Fishbourne before the Roman Invasion.

         To look at who occupied the site I am going to be looking at the animal bones from the site. To do this I plan to look at how the animal bone from the site is butchered. Iron Age and Roman butchery practices vary greatly, so from analysing these remains It should be possible to determine whether it was the Roman military or the local Iron Age population who were present in the area before the Roman Invasion.

         I aim to keep updating my blog with more information about the project as time goes on. I am aiming to complete the project by September, however I hope to write up more detailed information about the project as well. Including information about; 

- The Regini (The tribe who occupied the area)

- The difference in Roman and Iron Age butchery practices 

- Information about the site itself

- Some of the more interesting animal bones I find! (I have already found a Bear toe, which I will hopefully be writing about soon!)

References/Further Reading

Allen, M., 2011. Animalscapes and Empire: New Perspectives on the Iron Age/Romano-British Transition. Ph.D thesis. University of Nottingham.

Cunliffe, B., 1998. Fishbourne Roman Palace. Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Ltd.

The Bioarchaeology of Pocklington and other ‘Warrior Graves’

The Bioarchaeology of Pocklington and other ‘Warrior Graves’

       Recent discoveries of an Iron Age cemetery at Pocklington has recently had a lot of press attention due to the presence of grave goods such as swords in some of the graves.  This discovery immediately interested me as I have been looking into Iron Age burial rites as part of my course on Bioarchaeology. When reading the various news articles surrounding the excavations, I realised that the Iron Age burials are repeatedly referred to as burials of ‘Warrior Kings’. The interpretation of a grave with a weapon as a grave belonging to a warrior is a problem in archaeology, often leading to the excavator to immediately jumping to the conclusion that burial was a ‘High-Satus Warrior’ without looking at other factors.

Figure 1: Article showing the recent discoveries at Pocklington

The discipline of Bioarchaeology looks at the scientific evidence available from the wider context to look at possible interpretations of burials. The warrior burials found in the Prehistoric period show a specific style of mortuary treatment which involves burying an individual with a weapon. However the mortuary treatment of the individual may not represent the lived reality of the individual. By interpreting just the grave goods, the archaeologist will only be interpreting the mortuary event, not the individual’s lifestyle. Therefore I believe without further analysis on the individuals and there lifestyle, it is impossible to say whether they were warriors, and even more impossible to say they were kings!

       I believe that is more likely that the burial of individuals with swords is more likely to be a burial rite, rather than an indication of their identity in life. This is shown by the large number of burials in Prehistoric and Medieval Britain with weaponry and the high levels of variation between them. 
           Although a very different period to the Iron Age, an example of this is the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Buckland in Dover. One of the graves included a male and a female, accompanied by a number of grave goods, usually typical of a warrior burial (See figure 2). However as one of the individuals in the grave was female and the grave was for two individuals, it was looked at as a variant of the ‘Warrior Grave’ theory. The excavator interpreted the double grave instead as ‘It raises the possibility that homo-sexuality was sufficiently socially acceptable to the Anglo-Saxons’ due to the presence of a female and that there were two individuals in one grave (Evison 1987 p.126). Although this may be true, I believe that it is more likely that the two individuals were buried following a typical burial rite at the time, which was a burial with weaponry, which may not have reflected there identity in life. 

       Figure 2: Illustration of Grave good found in the double grave at Buckland. Evison 1987.

           Although a large number of these individuals may have been warriors, I believe that it is important to take a ‘Bioarchaeological’ approach to the remains, and look at the wider context and area first, only making an interpretation when there is sufficient evidence to do so. An important aspect of this is realising that what we see in the grave, is part of a mortuary ritual, and may not represent what the individual is like in life. Looking at the Identity of the individual needs to take into account other contextual information such as the individual’s skeletal remains and the time period and area the individual lived in.

Bibliography/Further Reading

Evison, V I., 1987. Dover: The Buckland Anglo-Saxon Cemetery. London: Historic England.

Larsen, C S., 2015. 2^nd Edition. Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behaviour From The Human Skeleton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The Regini: The Lost Tribe of the Iron Age

The Regini: The Lost Tribe of the Iron Age

The Late Iron Age (100 BC – 43 AD) is often characterised by a set of ‘Tribes’, which ruled over certain areas of Britain before the Roman Invasion. Ever since Ptolemy’s Geography named the tribes in Late Iron Age Britain, the view of the tribes present has not seen many changes, with most modern volumes on the subject showing similarities to Ptolemy’s interpretation of the tribes of Britain.

Figure 1: Interpretation of Ptolomy’s Map Of Britain. Compared to Modern Interpretations of Late Iron Age Britain.                 A tribe that was not mentioned in Ptolemy’s Geography and is therefore often overlooked is the Regini. Currently little is known about the tribe known as the Regini, and little work has been done trying to define the tribe’s territory and culture.                 The existence of the tribe is known from the city of Chichester. In the Roman Period Chichester was a ‘Civitas’ Capital, meaning a minor capital city in control of a small tribal area. As shown on the maps in Figure 1, the tribe usually believed to have been occupying Chichester is the Atrebates, however I believe that through looking at the name of the city, it can be interpreted that the Regini were the tribe in control of the area instead. Chichester’s Roman name was ‘Noviomagus Reginorum’. It is widely agreed that the ‘Noviomagus’ section translates as ‘New Market’, however the ’Reginorum’ aspect has often been debated. Historically ‘Reginorum’ was seen to translate to something to do with the word ‘Kingdom’ for example ‘The People of the Kingdom’. However when compared to other capitals it becomes clear that it means something different. The tribal capital of the Durotriges tribe of Dorset (Dorchester) is known as ‘Durotrigium’, which translates as the land of the Duro(triges). This pattern is also seen in other local capitals such as Atrebatum (Silchester), which is in the Atrebates territory and Belgarum (Winchester) which is in the territory of the Belgae tribe. When applied to Chichester, the same interpretation shows that the town’s name, Reginorum, actually should be interpreted as ‘New Market, Land of the Regini’. Unfortunately there is little other written evidence for the Regini tribe, so it is hard to distinguish an exact territory or material culture. Furthermore there is little archaeological evidence for the Late Iron Age in the area, except for the large entrenchments to the north of Chichester, known as the Chichester Dykes (See Figure 2). Figure 2: Line of the Chichester Dykes.                The Chichester Dykes possibly could show the Regini tribe marking their territory on a major scale, however a large Late Iron Age settlement is yet to be found in the area. The Regini are a tribe that has always interested me, and hopefully more will be understood about the tribe as more research in the area takes place. For example, the site of Westward House shows potential to be related to the tribe, however the work on the site is still on going.                 Although there is still information about the tribe out there, which I will be exploring in future blogs. The interpretation of the small amount of archaeological information for this period and possible links to historical sources show an opportunity to understand more about this forgotten tribe. I believe that it is likely that there are a large number of smaller tribes across Britain that were have been forgotten in recent work on the Late Iron Age. The re-analysis of the interpretation of Chichester’s Latin Name has allowed a smaller tribe to be named, changing the usual interpretation of the Late Iron Age tribes in Britain for the first time since Ptolemy's Geography in the 2nd Century AD. Figure 3: The Iron Age tribes of Southern and Central Britain, showing the proposed position of the Regni or Regini tribe. Bibliography/Further Reading Manley, J., ed. 2008. The Archaeology of Fishbourne and Chichester A Framework for its Future. Lewis: The Sussex Archaeology Society. Russell, M., 2006. Roman Sussex. Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Ltd. Russell, M., 2010. Bloodline. Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing Ltd.