Animal bone

The animal bone assemblage consisted of a total of 8697 re-fitted fragments from securely dated contexts. Of these, 5539 fragments (63.7%) were hand collected and 3158 fragments (36.3%) were recovered from sieved bulk samples. The majority of the sieved remains were unidentifiable to taxa. While the site contained features from the late Neolithic up to the modern period, the bulk of the assemblage was late Neolithic and late Iron Age/early Roman. The scarcity of features more recent than early Roman suggests that the settlement was abandoned at the end of the early Roman period. The bones from later Roman and postmedieval features are included in overall tables, but will not be discussed further. The bones were identified using a comparative skeletal reference collection in addition to standard osteological identification manuals, such as Bacher (1967), Cohen and Serjeantson (1996), Hillson (1992), Schmid (1972) and Woelfe (1967). All the animal remains were counted and weighed, and where possible identified to species, element, side and zone. For zoning, Serjeantson (1996) was used, with the addition of mandible zones by Worley (forthcoming). Sheep and goat were identified to species where possible, using Boessneck et al. (1964) and Prummel and Frisch (1986). They were otherwise classified as ‘sheep/goat’. Long bone fragments, ribs and vertebrae, with the exception for atlas and axis, were classified by size, ‘large mammal’ representing cattle, horse and deer, ‘medium mammal’ representing sheep/goat, pig and large dog, ‘small mammal’ representing small dog, cat and hare, and ‘microfauna’ representing animals such as frog, rat and mice. The general condition of the bones/context was graded on a 6-point system (0-5). Grade 0 equating to very well preserved bone, and grade 5 indicating that the bone had suffered such structural and attritional damage as to make it unrecognisable. For ageing, Habermehl’s (1975) data on epiphyseal fusion was used. Cattle horn cores were aged according to Armitage (1982), using texture and appearance of the horn core surface. Tooth wear was recorded using Grant’s tooth wear stages (Grant 1982), and correlated with tooth eruption (Habermehl 1975). In order to estimate an age for the animals, the methods of Halstead (1985), Payne (1973) and O’Connor (1988) were used for cattle, sheep/goat and pig respectively. Sexable elements, that is, cattle and sheep pelves, pig canine teeth and deer antlers were recorded, using data from Boessneck et al. (1964), Prummel and Frisch (1986), Schmid (1972) and Vretemark (1997). Observance of medullary bone in birds were used to indicate the presence of egg-laying hens. Measurements were taken according to von den Driesch (1976), using digital callipers with an accuracy of 0.01 mm. Large bones were measured using an osteometric board, with an accuracy of 1 mm.