Dear Eve,
There has been a lot of work done on this topic in recent years. And for many species newer ageing schemes have been produced which are much for firmly grounded in empirical data than that in Silver. I refer you to a 2006 publication edited by Deborah Roscillo - Recent Advances in Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones published by Oxbow Press.
My own work on this topic for sheep and goats and for pigs (with Ximena Lemoine) is posted on my web page (http://anthropology.si.edu/archaeobio/zeder.html)
Good luck.
Melinda
Melinda A. Zeder
Senior Scientist, Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology
Curator, Old World Archaeology
Department of Anthropology
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Mailing Address:
45 Gold Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87508
Phone: 703 626-9118
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From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Eve Rannamäe [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 8:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ZOOARCH] Ageing animal bones
Dear zooarchs,
In the light of the ongoing discussion...Is there some summary or any collection of publications which would give 'the best' methods for ageing archaeological animal remains (for the main domesticates, to start with)? Which is the method researches mostly use for cattle, for pig, for sheep, etc...? What methods lecturers refer to in their zooarchaeology courses? Because it seems there are various methods out there and one must always keep in mind the differences in growth length between ancient animals and contemporary breeds and so on... But are there any so-called standards (in forms of easily usable tables) you use in your daily work? And here I mean for both long bones and vertebrae.
Because until now I have relied mostly on Silver (1969) for epiphyses, and Schmid (1972) for tooth eruption (as I was taught some years ago) - these are the tables I have printed out and put on my work desk for quick access - and since it hasn't been criticized during presentations, or publication reviews, I have been keeping using them. However, I constantly have on my mind that I should update my methods.
I apologize if this question might have been here previously...But I would very much appreciate any feedback (even off-list)!
Thank you!
Eve Rannamäe
Institute of History and Archaeology
University of Tartu
Estonia
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