ULAS
University of Leicester Archaeological Services

download the brochure here

Animal bone analysis - interpreting the urban bones

Analysing the animal bones can provide fascinating information not available from any other source. These are some of the ways in which studying the animals and their products can help understand the life of the town.

Livestock

Most of the bones from urban sites are from domestic animals; cattle sheep, pig, chickens and geese, with fewer goats, dogs, cats and horses. During their lives, the domestic stock played an integral part in the economy of town and country. Cattle pulled ploughs and gave milk, sheep supplied milk and wool, chickens provided eggs and all produced dung that could enrich the fields and enable better crops to be grown.

Roman cattle scapulae with hook marks, from cured or smoked shoulders of beef.

The numbers of fused and un-fused bones, along with information from tooth eruption and wear, can be used to suggest the age at which the animals were killed. By pooling the information from lots of bones, we can look at dietary preferences and suggest if the animals were reared mostly for meat or if they were more useful alive, perhaps only slaughtered at the end of their useful working lives. Cattle and sheep require grazing land and they would probably have been driven to market in town at the end of their productive lives. However, bones of very young pigs and chickens suggest that these animals may have been raised within the town.

Environment

Study of the bones can help to tell us about living conditions in towns. Mouse bones are not uncommon, particularly within dwellings. Black rat (notorious for its part in the spread of the Black Death in the fourteenth century) starts to occur in the Roman period but was largely replaced by the Brown rat from the seventeenth century onwards. Sometimes the remains of scavenging birds, such as crows and ravens are found suggesting that there was plenty of rubbish lying around in the town for them to feast on. An abundance of small creatures may also help to identify periods of abandonment in the city. Examples of a range of small animals found in owl pellets can suggest that owls were roosting in abandoned buildings.

Hides, furs and glue

Meat was not the only useful product from an animal carcass, skins, horns and  hooves had their value too. After slaughter, the hide would be removed. Heads and feet appear to often have been left in the hide. Then the carcass would probably have been passed onto the butcher for processing. A large number of medieval cattle horncores (the bony part beneath the horn sheath) were recovered from a well at Sanvey Gate, Leicester. The horncores are likely to signify either hornworking or tanning. Prolonged soaking was needed to loosen the horn sheath from the bone; soaking pits containing numerous horncores have been found in York.  Hooves could be made into glue. Fine cut marks found on the heads and feet of animals such as horses, cats and rabbits show that they were sometimes used for hides and fur.

Diet

Most of the bones found on town sites are likely to be food waste. In the Roman and medieval period, just as today, cattle, sheep and pigs were the main food animals. Chicken and goose bones are also quite common in the towns and bones also show that the diet was sometimes supplemented by wild animals, birds and fish. The quantities of different anatomical elements present can help suggest what was happening on the site. For example a lot of heads and feet might indicate that slaughter and primary butchery (decapitation and skinning) was being carried out or perhaps indicate that hides were being processed (see ‘Hides, Furs and Glue'). But a large proportion of meaty limb bones, vertebra and ribs are more suggestive of cooking or waste from the table, as these parts are likely to have remained ‘on the bone’ prior to consumption.

Bone-working

Bone debris from pin manufacture at Vine Street

Even the bones themselves were useful as a raw material for making objects. At Vine Street, a large quantity of characteristically butchered bones have been identified in the Roman assemblage (see left). These bones were predominantly cattle metapodia (‘foot’ bones). The bones had been roughly chopped through the shaft just above the distal articulation (the end of bone furthest from the centre of the body). The distal articulations were recovered accompanied by large quantities of shaft splinters. Sometimes these splinters had been shaped into a multi-faceted ‘pin’ shape. Finished pins were also found. These had been smoothed so that they had a rounded, polished appearance. These bones represent all stages of the specialised manufacture of bone pins and show that it was happening on or close to the site.

These pictures show a bone skate and a range of other objects crafted from bone. All were found during the recent Leicester excavations.

Bone ice skates were recovered from the medieval town ditch at Sanvey Gate and from Vine Street. These are usually made from horse metapodials (‘foot’ bones), which are smoothed and shaped and sometimes have a strap hole at either end. They usually range in date from the 8th to the 13th centuries and have been found on sites all over Britain. Many other bone objects were also found during the recent excavations, including spoons, knife-handles, games-pieces and flutes.