A barrow full of cattle skulls.

A barrow full of cattle skulls. IntroductionMost of the animal bones found on archaeological sites aredistributed rather haphazardly, and probably represent scattered foodremains. The frequencies of different parts of the skeleton mainlyreflect differences in rates of post-mortem destruction: dense bones,especially teeth, are more likely to withstand destruction, and tend tobe more common, while others such as vertebrae VertebraeBones in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions of the body that make up the vertebral column. Vertebrae have a central foramen (hole), and their superposition makes up the vertebral canal that encloses the spinal cord. , proximal humeri andproximal tibiae are less dense, less likely to be preserved andgenerally found in smaller numbers (Brain 1967).Sometimes, however, groups of animal bones derive from particularparts of the skeleton only -- often in large numbers and from particularkinds of context -- and these can often reasonably be interpreted asbutchery or industrial waste. For example, a concentration of cattlehorn cores from Cutler Street in the City of London is presumed to comefrom a homer's workshop (Armitage 1978), and an unusually largenumber of sheep foot bones, from Walmgate in York, may represent wastefrom a tannery (O'Connor 1984).Other unusual bone groups are less easily explained in this way, andmay sometimes be interpreted as reflecting ritual practices: acollection of right hind-limb bones of sheep for instance, from the6th-century BC temple of Apollo in Cyprus (Davis in press), or theso-called 'hide and hooves' burials, reported at severalNeolithic and Beaker barrows in England where the feet and head of a cowwere found in association with the burial (Piggott 1962; Grigson 1984).This article describes another unusual assemblage of animal bones,from a Beaker period round barrow Round barrows are one of the most common types of archaeological monuments. Although concentrated in Europe they are found in many parts of the world because of their simple construction and universal purpose. in central England. It consists of theremains of at least 185 skulls and a smaller number of mandibles,shoulder blades and pelves pelvesplural form of pelvis. of cattle. Bones of other parts of theskeleton and other species are conspicuously rare or absent. There canbe little doubt that this assemblage is the result of some kind ofritual associated with the death of the man buried in the barrow, addingto the evidence suggesting that cattle played an important symbolic rolein British Neolithic and Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the society.The siteBarrow 1 at Irthlingborough was one of a group of barrows and othermonuments on the floodplain floodplain,level land along the course of a river formed by the deposition of sediment during periodic floods. Floodplains contain such features as levees, backswamps, delta plains, and oxbow lakes. of the Nene Nene(nēn, nĕn)or Nen(nĕn), river, c.90 mi (140 km) long, rising in the Northampton Uplands, central England, and flowing NE past Northampton, Oundle, Peterborough, and Wisbech to the Wash. , 2 km west of the modern villageof Stanwick in Northamptonshire (NGR NGR National Grid Reference (UK)NGR National Grape Registry (UC Davis)NGR National Guard RegulationNGR Non Grain Raising (wood finish)SP 96237126; FIGURE 1). It wasexcavated in 1986 under the direction of Claire Halpin of EnglishHeritage's Central Excavation Unit (Halpin 1987a; 1987b) as part ofthe Raunds Area Project (Foard & Pearson 1985; Dix 1987).The barrow had been substantially eroded and truncated by ploughing:less than 0.3 m of the mound was preserved (Halpin 1987b). Threeconcentric ring ditches, 15, 24, and 32 m in diameter, are thought tohave been dug during the construction of the mound and two successiveenlargements.Despite the truncation of the barrow mound, a substantial deposit ofanimal bones was found overlying overlyingsuffocation of piglets by the sow. The piglets may be weak from illness or malnutrition, the sow may be clumsy or ill, the pen may be inadequate in size or poorly designed so that piglets cannot escape. and mixed with a deposit of limestoneblocks, both slumping into the large central grave pit (2.65 x 2.10 mand c. 0.85 m deep). This stone and bone deposit is thought to representa cairn cairn,pile of stones, usually conical in shape, raised as a landmark or a memorial. In prehistoric times it was usually erected over a burial. A barrow is sometimes called a cairn. of stones and bones which slumped after the decay and collapseof a structure of timber beams which once formed a roof to the burialpit.The burial pit contained the partly disarticulated skeleton of anadult man (Henderson 1988). Accompanying it were numerous associatedgrave goods In archaeology and anthropology grave goods are the items buried along with the body.They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods are a type of votive deposit. , placed at the feet of the burial: these comprised threebone spatulae, a long-necked beaker, a flint dagger and 12 other flints(some retouched as knives and scrapers), five conical jet buttons withV-perforations, an archer's stone wrist-guard Early Bronze Age stone wrist-guards are found across Europe from around 2400-1900BC and are closely associated with the Beaker culture and Unetice culture. In the past they have be variously known as stone bracers, stone arm-guards and armlets , two'sponge-finger' stones, an amber ring and a boar's tusk(Halpin 1987a; 1987b). These goods date the burial to the Beaker periodand are of an unusually fine quality, indicating that the buried man wasof high status (Humble 1990).The bone deposit, which was up to 0.8 m thick and covered an area of10-15 sq. m, contained abundant cattle teeth and bone fragments. Lossfrom ploughing and the construction of an anthrax-pit (the'disturbed' area in FIGURE 2) means that the original depositmay have been somewhat larger. Most of the teeth are from maxillae(upper jaws). They and the other bones were scattered at random, buttheir distributions form a single cluster over and around the grave. MrR. Jones of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory supervised the on-siterecording and lifting of the bone deposit.The animal bonesThe methods used for analysis are detailed in Davis (1989) whichincludes the raw data.Most of the bones are poorly preserved; none show any sign ofburning. The teeth, in contrast, are generally in excellent condition;many were found in groups which were clearly from the same tooth-row(the bone having disappeared), while others were found as single teeth.The majority (over 98%; TABLE 1) of the bones and teeth are fromcattle. Remains of other species such as horse, pig and sheep/goat arefew in number and are probably accidental introductions into theassemblage. There is little doubt that the majority of the teethbelonged to domestic cattle -- they differ little from teeth of moderndomestic cattle. There are five upper teeth, all plausibly from a singleindividual, which are considerably larger. Their circumferences showthem to be well beyond the range of variation of the rest of theIrthlingborough cattle teeth. These five large teeth are identified asaurochs aurochs:see cattle. aurochsor aurochExtinct wild ox (Bos primigenius) of Europe, the species from which cattle are probably descended. The aurochs survived in central Poland until 1627. It was black, stood 6 ft (1. , known to have been present in Britain at least until the LateBronze Age:Clutton-Brock & Burleigh (1983) dated aurochs remains fromSomerset to c. 1300 BC. A fragment of horn core is also identified asaurochs on the basis of its large size, and two large scapulae may alsobe aurochs.TABLE 1. Numbers of bones and teeth found at Irthlingboroughbarrow. numbers percentagecattle 2471 98%aurochs 6 |is less than~1%horse 8 |is less than~1%pig 14 1%sheep/goat 10 |is less than~1%dog 2 |is less than~1%total 2511DateTwo domestic cattle and two aurochs upper second molars have beendated by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (Hedges et al. 1990). Asample of bone from the human skeleton was dated by the RadiocarbonDating Research Unit at Queen's University, Belfast. The resultsare in TABLE 2. While the spread of the dates is slightly wider thanmight be expected for a single event, in general terms thesedatesconfirm the Beaker period age of the burial, the cattle and theaurochs bones.TABULAR DATA OMITTEDThe parts of the skeleton represented and evidence of defleshingIt is unusual enough to find large archaeological animal boneassemblages consisting almost entirely of a single species. An evenstranger feature of this assemblage is the relative frequency ofdifferent parts of the skeleton. While the majority of the animalremains derive from 185 cattle skulls (this count is based on thenumbers of upper molars), there are far smaller numbers of cattlemandibles, scapulae and pelves (no more than 38, 33 and 15 animals needbe represented respectively), and only a few fragments of limb-bones,carpals, tarsals and phalanges phalangesplural of phalanx. . This kind of anatomical composition --many skulls, fewer mandibles/girdles, almost no longbones -- is highlyunusual. Preservational factors can be ruled out as an explanation.There were, for instance, only 3 distal humeri (one of the heaviest andstrongest parts of the skeleton) as compared with 144 occipital condyles(a more fragile part at the back of the skull).We suggest that the deposit may have originally been made up of theskulls, mandibles, scapulae and pelves of at least some 40 cattle(probably including one aurochs) together with the skulls of at least afurther approximately 145 cattle, without other parts of the skeleton.Right and left mandibular mandibular(mandib´ylr),adj pertaining to the lower jaw. teeth, scapulae and pelves were found insimilar numbers, thus showing no evidence of preference for one side ofthe body. Despite the poor state of preservation of the bones, fine cutmarks, probably made by a sharp instrument, could be observed on severalscapulae and basioccipitals. The marks on the scapulae were probablymade during defleshing.TABLE 3. Minimum numbers of different parts of the cattleskeletons represented at Irthlingborough. minimum numbers left rightskull 184mandible 31 38atlas 7axis 1scapula 32 33humerus 2 1radius 1 0metacarpal 0 1pelvis 15 12femur 1 0tibia 1 0astragalus 0 0calcaneum 0 0metatarsal 1 0phalanges 1Closer inspection of the numbers of different cattle teeth reveals aninteresting pattern of loss, and may provide a clue as to the state inwhich skulls were originally incorporated into the barrow. While a totalof 1100 upper molars and 200 lower molars was found (from a minimum of185 cattle skulls and the mandibles of at least 38 cattle), the numberof premolars decreases towards the front of the tooth row in both upperand lower jaws. Only one incisor incisor/in��ci��sor/ (I) (-si��zer)1. adapted for cutting.2. incisor tooth.in��ci��sorn. was found where there would originallyhave been 272.Incisors and premolars are smaller teeth, falling out of the jawafter death more readily than the molars, whose spreading roots anchorthem more firmly in their sockets. For this reason, incisors andpremolars are more vulnerable to loss during excavation. But thisexplanation TABULAR DATA OMITTED does not account for their scarcity atIrthlingborough: the bone deposit was excavated slowly and with greatcare, and groups of teeth were lifted and bagged with the surroundingearth which was sieved when the teeth were cleaned. Though not all theearth was sieved in this way, and some of these smaller teeth may havebeen lost during excavation, losses of the order indicated in TABLE 4require some other explanation. It seems most probable that the loss ofincisors and premolars occurred during a delay between slaughter andfinal incorporation of skulls/mandibles into the barrow. A delay of amonth or more might have been sufficient to allow flesh to rot and teethto drop. We suggest, then, that the skulls and bones were placed on thecairn some time after the animals were killed.Age at deathCattle, like most herbivorous herbivorous/her��biv��o��rous/ (her-biv��ah-rus) subsisting upon plants. mammals, have evolved high-crownedteeth to cope with the gradual wearing away caused by the abrasivenature of the food. As tooth wear proceeds, the height of the remainingcrown decreases and the pattern of enamel folds visible on the bitingsurface changes. Both of these features may be used to estimate theapproximate age at death of the animals by measuring the crown height(Ducos 1968) and by assigning a tooth to a particular 'wearstage' (FIGURE 5, after Payne (1987)). Analysis of these twovariables in the Irthlingborough upper molars indicates that almost allthe cattle slaughtered were sub-adults and young adults, aged between 1and 6 years old, with only one calf and no very old individuals amongthem. They would have been prime beef animals.DiscussionThe cut marks on the scapulae were most probably made duringdefleshing, and most of the bones from the parts of the skeleton thatwould have provided most of the best meat are missing. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently ,we are not dealing here with any sacrifice of joints of meat 'onthe bone', either to provide the soul with nourishment on itsjourney into the next world or as a gift to the gods; instead, itappears that the skulls and bones were placed on the cairn after themeat had been removed.The simplest interpretation would be to suggest that all the 185cattle were killed and TABULAR DATA OMITTED eaten at the site. Thequantity of meat that this would have involved is formidable, conjuringup images of large-scale feasting on the banks of the Nene. The 185cattle would have provided at least 40 tons of meat which, on a rationof 1 kg per person per day, would feed 40,000 people for a day, or 500people for two-and-a-half months; the total amount would have been evengreater if ploughing and disturbance have destroyed substantial amountsof bone.This is much more meat than would have been needed simply to feed thepeople who were building the barrow. Startin & Bradley (1981) havemade estimates of the labour requirements for several well-known Englishprehistoric earthworks: the long barrow at Fussell's Lodge, forinstance, would have required 690 man-days; the megalithic meg��a��lith?n.A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles, notably in western Europe during the second millennium b.c. long barrowat West Kennet required about 1570 man-days, and Durrington Walls inWiltshire, which covers 30 acres, might have required between 50,000 and90,000 man-days to construct. For the far smaller barrow atIrthlingborough, 185 cattle would be vastly more than necessary just tofeed the builders during its construction.Further evidence bears on the length of time that the defleshedskulls lay exposed to weathering before being buried. While the bone ispoorly preserved, most of the teeth are in good condition and showlittle sign of the cracking and shattering damage that results fromexposure to frost and temperature change over a matter of years. Thoseteeth that are poorly preserved have been damaged by dentine dentine,n See dentin.dentineone of the hard tissues of the teeth which constitutes most of its bulk. Lies between the pulp cavity and the enamel, and where it is not covered by enamel is covered by cementum, the third hard substance loss,probably through leaching within the soil, and the enamel is still infairly good condition; cracks and breaks are few and along the long axis long axisn.A line parallel to an object lengthwise, as in the body the imaginary line that runs vertically through the head down to the space between the feet. of the tooth. This suggests that the skulls could not have been exposedto the elements for very long -- no more than a few years at most -- andso were presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. buried fairly rapidly.Taken together with the evidence provided by the missing premolarsand incisors, there is still a wide range of possible series of eventsthat might have produced the bone deposit. One possible scenario wouldinvolve the killing of the animals and large-scale consumption of meatin the course of ceremonies taking place over a relatively short periodat or near the barrow; the skulls and some of the bones would have beenstacked on one side for a few weeks or months during which the missingteeth were lost, and then piled on the stone cairn and buried.Another possibility is that only 40 or so of the cattle were killedand consumed in this way at the site, and that the remainder of theskulls were from animals that were killed and eaten elsewhere, andbrought to the site and piled on the cairn as tokens. This raises thefurther possibility that these other skulls might have been from animalskilled and eaten in the past, not necessarily in connection with thisburial. This might provide an explanation, if one is needed, for thespread of the 14C dates; the aurochs skull in particular might have beena valued antique.Archaeological parallelsThe Irthlingborough assemblage is almost unique. We are aware of onlyone report of what may have been a comparable assemblage in the Britisharchaeological literature (it is unfortunate that many prehistoricbarrows were 'opened' in the 18th and 19th centuries when, alltoo often, little attention was paid to animal remains.)The one assemblage reported that appears to have been comparable inscale to Irthlingborough (we are grateful to Caroline Grigson fordrawing our attention to it) comes from Harrow Hill -- an Iron Age hillfort in west Sussex excavated in 1936 by Holleyman (1937: 250):Although there was a paucity of occupation material, animal bone wasabundant and, with few exceptions, represented only the heads of whatDr. Wilfrid Jackson has identified as a species of Early Iron Age ox.Hardly a limb-bone was found, yet the skulls, represented principally bymandibles and teeth, must number between fifty and one hundred from oursmall cuttings alone. This would mean, at a very conservative estimate,that the whole earthwork earth��work?n.1. An earthen embankment, especially one used as a fortification. See Synonyms at bulwark.2. Engineering Excavation and embankment of earth.3. must contain remains of well over a thousandheads. Dr. Jackson knows of no analogous example, and at present we cando no more than record the strange fact.Here in Sussex, then, is another example of a cattle head or skullaccumulation perhaps similar to Irthlingborough. But Jackson neverpublished a report on these ox skulls (Holleyman pers. comm.), and itsdate cannot be regarded as certain.Further evidence for special treatment of cattle skulls comes fromNeolithic and Beaker period 'hide and hooves' burials, citedabove (Piggott 1962; Grigson 1984). Several 19th-century antiquariesreport in their writings that cattle skulls were sometimes found withthe human remains uncovered in barrows. For example, Hoare (1812: 87-8)described 14 human skulls and several human bodies associated with theheads and horns of seven or more oxen oxenadult castrated male of any breed of Bos spp. at Bowls barrow, near Heytesburyin Wiltshire. Merewether (1851: 41), who opened a barrow near Silbury,also in Wiltshire, described an adult human skeleton found at a depth of10 feet. Five feet above were the 'heads of two oxen laid side byside and in very perfect condition. . . . in each the centre of theforehead had been fractured in a circular hole'. Bateman's(1861: 128-30) account of barrows 'opened by Mr. Carrington in1849' is also worth noting. Bateman reported the careful intermentof part of the head of an ox, an occurrence which he had discovered onseveral earlier occasions. He also mentions the presence of the upperjaw of an ox which was '. . . the fifth instance, of theintentional burial of the whole or part of the head of the ox', andwhich, according to Bateman, 'goes far to prove the existence ofsome peculiar superstition or rite, of which no notice has reachedmodern times'. These reports, as well as the assemblage we describehere, corroborate To support or enhance the believability of a fact or assertion by the presentation of additional information that confirms the truthfulness of the item.The testimony of a witness is corroborated if subsequent evidence, such as a coroner's report or the testimony of other Grant's (1991) suggestion that in Neolithic andBronze Age Britain In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2700 to 700 BC.Periodization late neolithic: Meldon Bridge Period EBA (2700-1500) cattle had a symbolic importance which was as greatas, or even greater than, their economic importance.Large numbers of animal skeletons and parts of skeletons were foundround the Mausoleum mausoleum(môsəlē`əm), a sepulchral structure or tomb, especially one of some size and architectural pretension, so called from the sepulcher of that name at Halicarnassus, Asia Minor, erected (c.352 B.C. at Halikarnassos in southwestern Turkey (Hojlund1981). But here, as also suggested by accounts of hekatombs in Classicaltexts, the emphasis is on the offering of meat: unlike Irthlingborough,whole carcasses were found in articulation, together with butcheredquarters and choice joints, and several kinds of animals are included.We could find no reported examples from classical times in which onlyskulls of a single species were placed in or over a tomb.Ethnographic parallelsOur search of the archaeological and classical literature revealedlittle that could shed light on the meaning of Irthlingborough. Butmodern ethnographic accounts of death and mortuary rites provide morepromising material, and may help us to understand the Irthlingboroughfaunal assemblage.In parts of Madagascar, elaborate funeral rites still take placeinvolving large numbers of cattle. Many Malagasy people pay greatreverence to their ancestors -- the dead and the living form a singlesociety in constant contact. Typically, the body of the deceased isfirst laid in a temporary burial place. A period of waiting ensuesbefore a second burial can take place. An important distinction is madebetween, on the one hand, a putrefying corpse in which the bones arestill 'wet' and, on the other hand, the end product ofputrefaction putrefaction:see decay of organic matter. , i.e. the dry bones. This period may vary from severalmonths to as much as 10 years -- on average two years. Reburial Noun 1. reburial - the act of burying againreburyingburying, burial - concealing something under the ground cannottake place until the corpse has completely decomposed and only the drybones remain. An evil power, linked with the smells of putrefaction, isthought to reside in the corpse, and as desiccation des��ic��ca��tionn.The process of being desiccated.desic��ca of the bonesprogresses, so the deceased is freed from the evil. The soul of thedeceased is then deemed worthy of admittance AdmittanceThe ratio of the current to the voltage in an alternating-current circuit. In terms of complex current I and voltage V, the admittance of a circuit is given by Eq. (1), and is related to the impedance of the circuit Z by Eq. (2). to the company of itsancestors, but in the intermediate period it wanders incessantly waitingfor the feast which will put an end to its restlessness (Hertz 1907).The feast, of which cattle are an important ingredient, accompanies theceremony of Famadihana, when the bones of the deceased are examined,re-wrapped in a special shroud and reburied.While not necessarily the main source of sustenanc, cattle reflectstatus and wealth in Madagascar, and play an important role in theburial and re-burial of the dead (see e.g. Mack 1986). The second burialmay last several days, or even a whole month, and may be accompanied byelaborate preparations and very great expense, even reducing the familyof the deceased to poverty. Many cattle are sacrificed and eaten inbanquets that often develop into huge orgies. In parts of southernMadagascar, for example among the Antandroy, Famadihana is notpractised, so the dried human bones cannot be seen. Instead cattleskulls -- perhaps symbolising the desiccation of the human skeleton --are placed over the tomb or on some high place nearby such as up a treeor on a cenotaph cenotaph(Greek: “empty tomb”) Monument, sometimes in the form of a tomb, to a person buried elsewhere. Ancient Greek writings tell of many cenotaphs, none of which survives. Existing cenotaphs of this type are found in churches (e.g. . These are the skulls of cattle sacrificed during thefuneral, whose number reflects the status of the deceased. The skullserves as an emblem of the virility VirilitySee also Beauty, Masculine; Brawniness.Fury, Sergeantarchetypal he-man. [Comics: “Sergeant Fury and His Howling Commandos” in Horn, 607–608]Henry, John and power whose increase is impliedin the act of sacrifice (Mack pers. comm.).Drawing parallels between modern Madagascar and prehistoric Britainmust be treated with great caution. It is, however, interesting to notethat in both cases the funerary fu��ner��ar��y?adj.Of or suitable for a funeral or burial.[Latin fner ritual concentrates on a single specieswhile the everyday diet is more varied: in Madagascar, goats, pigs andbirds are also eaten as well as beef (Bloch pers. comm.), while sheep,pig and deer are commonly found in prehistoric animal bone assemblagesin Britain as well as cattle. The Irthlingborough cattle bone assemblagecan plausibly be seen as a symbol of the power and status of the buriedman, and adds weight to earlier suggestions (Piggott 1962; Grigson 1984;Grant 1991) that in prehistoric Britain, as in Madagascar today, cattlehad important symbolic as well as economic value.Acknowledgements. In studying this strange faunal assemblage fromIrthlingborough, we have benefitted greatly from the help of numerouspeople. In particular, we are most grateful to Roger Jones of theAncient Monuments Laboratory, and Claire Halpin, Jon Humble and NicholasBalaam of the Central Excavation Unit. They kindly produced the spatialplots of finds at Irthlingborough and gave us much advice. Our thanks,too, to Andrew David, Jon Humble, John Kahn, Terry O'Connor, MikeParker-Pearson, Rosemary Payne, and Mark Robinson for their comments onearlier versions of this paper. Caroline Grigson of the OdontologicalMuseum, Royal College of Surgeons, and Tim Darvill of BournemouthUniversity drew our attention to several useful references in theliterature. John Mack and Nigel Barley of the Museum of Mankindintroduced us to some of the customs practised today by people in Africaand Madagascar. We have had useful advice concerning burial practices inthe Classical world from Robert Cook of Cambridge, Michael Jameson ofStanford University, California, and Crawford Greenewalt of theUniversity of California at Berkeley (body, education) University of California at Berkeley - (UCB)See also Berzerkley, BSD.http://berkeley.edu/.Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not /bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation. ; and advice concerning radiocarbondates from David Haddon-Reece and David Jordan.ReferencesARMITAGE, P.L. 1978. 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