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A barrow full of cattle skulls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Simon Davis  and
Sebastian Payne
Simon Davis
Affiliation:
Ancient Monuments Laboratory, English Heritage, 23 Savile Row, London W1X 1AB, UK
Sebastian Payne
Affiliation:
Ancient Monuments Laboratory, English Heritage, 23 Savile Row, London W1X 1AB, UK
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Extract

A bone deposit found in a round barrow overlying a rich Beaker-period burial in Northamptonshire (England) contained at least 184 domestic cattle skulls and one aurochs skull, but very few other cattle bones or bones of other animals. Most of the cattle were young adults. The relative scarcity of premolars suggests that they were deposited on the cairn some time after death. The paper discusses archaeological and ethnographic parallels for this unusual deposit.

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Papers
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Antiquity , Volume 67 , Issue 254 , March 1993 , pp. 12 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1993

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