Dear All,
I recently received this e-mail from a colleague who works in physical
anthro. I will post the photos under Russel Nelson on the bone
commons. Please respond to [log in to unmask]
Hi Richard-
I am working with Bill Honeychurch and Josh Wright over in
Mongolia. This year we excavated a Xiongnu context where the individual
had been interred with a number of animals- 7 or 8 horses, 3-4 cows and
about a dozen or more sheep/goats. Since I needed to get all this
livestock off my exam table in the lab tent, I jumped in to help clean
through the recovered stuff. I came across these cow teeth (see
attached) and was struck by the interproximal grooving that mimics what
we see occasionally in humans, generally thought to be the result of
either a palliative measure such as rodding in between teeth with a
toothpick like device (maybe, but I don't buy it on this level) or by
regularly pulling some sort of stringy material through the mouth, such
as in stripping rawhide or grasses (silaceous stuff) in the basket
manufacture process. Since cows eat grass, I reasoned this must be what
does it here, but it still seemed extensive, as well as pervaSIVE (33%
OF A SAMPLE OF 29 TEETH FROM 3-4 COWS)oops- caps lock. Anyway, so I
went out and looked at some Zud piles for a modern comparison (Bill
thinks I'm nuts). The Zud was that winter a few years ago that killed
off about half or more of Mongolia's stock herds, so there are piles of
bones lying around just begging to be looked at and asked research
questions before they all exfoliate and degrade. In a sample of 118 or
so teeth from 3 different zud piles representing maybe 80 animals I
only got like 5% with that kind of grooving, but I did get some, so I
figure faunal guys like you know about this. The question is, is this
something that's so common archaeologically that nobody bothers to look
at it, is it worth following up- I mean, that kind of difference may be
reflecting less in the way of foddering for the archaeological cows, it
could mean they kept them alive longer, so there may a use
differential, I don't know, but it seemed like something I should ask
you about. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance-
Russell NElson
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