Dear Karin & colleagues:
Really, are scarce the studies on cattle in America. I have the same problem with a site in Mexico from XVIth century. But, I obtain some lights with the works of Elizabeth S. Wing in Caribbean and Florida sites from Colonial times. I donīt have in this moment the cites, but you can check it the references titles on the site of Florida Natural History Museum or maybe, contact with her (I will try the same!).
Can you give me the reference of Sherri Gust?
Cheers!
"Karin P. Dunwoody" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear Zooarch list members,
>
> Encouraged by the recent exchange concerning the interest in
> questions and their answers to the list at large, I would like to
> know if there are others working on collections containing Bos taurus
> from fairly diverse (non-continental) sources.
>
> I ask because my helper came to me today with a distal 1st phalange
> fragment from Bos taurus. We entered into a discussion about
> potential identification problems in my collection that might/will
> arise because most of my comparative material is from modern beef and
> dairy cattle, my books/articles refer primarily to modern or Roman
> European (and mostly British at that!) cattle, but our collection is
> from Spanish colonial cows in California (ca. 1769-1835)--stock that
> comes (by foot mostly) from Baja California many generations removed
> from peninsular Spanish origins, via Cuba and Mexico. The modern
> comparative sample and the archaeological sample were similar enough
> to me, but my assistant pointed out slight differences in
> "gracileness" that I had trouble accounting for (eg., the comparative
> samples are a little more "lightly built" than the archaeological
> material). There was indeed an almost total replacement of the cattle
> population as a result of the Gold Rush of 1849 and the annexation of
> Mexican California to the United States. Modern cows here are more
> often dairy and beef types and differ from the "criollo" (eg. Texas
> Longhorn types), at least cranially. I understand why there are
> differences ("free-ranging cattle, some castrates, sex and age,
> etc...) but I realized that I had not seen much literature (save for
> a discussion by Sherri Gust) on the effects of breed, relocation and
> ranching style (penning vs. free-ranging). Can anyone share more
> information or refer me to more literature, even if it might be
> rudimentary for many list readers?
>
> Thanks in advance....I hope that the results are broadly interesting.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Karin P. Dunwoody
> Grad. student
> Dept. of Archaeology, Boston University
>
__________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Webmail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com/
|