Cattle husbandry in the Iron Age and Roman Britain

Banner image credit: Highland cattle grazing in the Peak District National Park (South Yorkshire, UK) (Photo by Colin Duval 2018)

Project Description

European communities experienced many agricultural and economic changes during the Iron Age and after the Roman conquest. Variations in livestock size and shape are direct evidence of such transformations. The osteometric dataset presented here was built in order to study husbandry change mechanisms and diversity in Britain. More than 56,000 cattle bone measurements from 112 Iron Age and Roman archaeological sites (700 BC to AD 650) were mainly collected from published books, articles, and open access resources. The analysis of cattle morphological patterns reveals very different regional trends, according to environmental and cultural characteristics, breeding preferences and external contacts. Cattle size seems to reflect the uneven impact of the Iron Age economic organisation on British populations, the Roman influence over production strategies, and the establishment of trade networks within Britain and with mainland Europe. The main aim of making this dataset available is to allow further comparisons for a better understanding of the processes of economic change in Iron Age and Roman Europe.

Methodological Notes

The dataset includes only cattle measurements, all recorded in millimetres. Most of them are taken according to von den Driesch (1976). Additional measurements are often collected by British zooarchaeologists and follow norms established for example by Davis (1992) and Dobney et al. (undated). Osteometric data were collected mostly from southern and central England, due principally to the vitality of the research in these areas, but the corpus extends to the north of the country (up to the Hadrian’s Wall) and Wales. The dataset includes 56,283 measurements from 112 sites, mostly from publicly available sources (websites, published books and articles, grey literature). Some unpublished data were directly obtained from zooarchaeologists. A total of 21,879 measured elements are available: teeth (third molars), horn cores, scapulae, humeri, radii, ulnae, pelvis, femorae, tibiae, calcanei, astragali, metapodials and phalanx. Although metrics were analysed using a Log Size Index technique in the related paper, only raw data are presented in this dataset. No individual is represented by more than one specimen in this dataset.

Support

This work was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fyssen Foundation based at The University of Sheffield.

Related Publications

Albarella U., Johnstone C. and Vickers K. 2008 – The development of animal husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period: a case study from South-East Britain, Journal of Archaeological Science, 35, Elsevier: 1828-1848.

Davis S. J. M. 1992 – A Rapid Method for Recording Information About Mammal Bones from Archaeological Sites, Unpublished Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report 19 / 92, English Heritage, 16 p.

Dobney K., Jaques S. D. and Irving B. G. Undated – Of butchers and breeds. Report on vertebrate remains from various sites in the City of Lincoln , Lincoln Archaeological Studies 5, British Library, 215 p.

Duval C. and Clavel B. 2018 – Bœufs gaulois et bœufs français. Morphologies animales et dynamiques économiques au cours de La Tène et des périodes historiques, Gallia 75, CNRS Éditions, Paris, 141-172.

Duval C., Horard-Herbin M.-P. and Lepetz S. 2013 – Morphological changes in domestic cattle in Gaul, from the second century BC to the fifth century AD: diversity of herds in the Seine valley (France) and northern Gaul, Journal of Archaeological Science 40, Elsevier: 3977-3990.

Driesch (von den) A. 1976 – A guide to measurement of animal bones from archaeological sites, Peabody Museum Bulletin 1, Harvard University, 136 p.

MacKinnon M. 2010 – Cattle ‘breed’ variation and improvement in Roman Italy: connecting the zooarchaeological and ancient textual evidence, World Archaeology 42(1), Routledge, London: 55-73.

Minniti C., Valenzuela-Lamas S., Evans J. and Albarella U. 2014 – Widening the market. Strontium isotope analysis on cattle teeth from Owslebury (Hampshire, UK) highlights changes in livestock supply between the Iron Age and the Roman period, Journal of Archaeological Science 42, Elsevier: 305-314.

Murphy P., Albarella U., Germany M. and Locker A. 2000 – Production, Imports and Status: Biological Remains from a Late Roman Farm at Great Holts Farm, Boreham, Essex, UK, Environmental Archaeology 5(1): 35-48.

Rizzetto M., Crabtree P. J. and Albarella U. 2017 – Livestock Changes at the Beginning and End of the Roman Period in Britain: Issues of Acculturation, Adaptation, and ‘Improvement’, European Journal of Archaeology 20(3), European Association of Archaeologists, Cambridge University Press: 535-556.

Valenzuela-Lamas S. and Albarella U. 2017 – Animal Husbandry across the Western Roman Empire: Changes and Continuities, European Journal of Archaeology 20(3), European Association of Archaeologists, Cambridge University Press: 402-415.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Andy Hammon, Claire Ingrem, Sofia Tecce, Lizzie Wright, Mauro Rizzetto, Silvia Valenzuela Lamas and Claudia Minniti for agreeing to make their unpublished data available in this database.