Dear all,
I am working on the faunal remains from a Post-Medieval tannery in
Brentford. There is consistent modification to the cattle metacarpals
whereby they are chopped in half through the long-axis of the bone. A hole
had also been drilled down through the medial side of the proximal
articulation in every case. Both the proximal and distal portions of the
bone were deposited in the same tanning pit to the exclusion of all other
faunal remains.
I’ve seen a couple of cattle metapodials from Southwark treated in the same
way, again these were from contexts relating to the tanning industry, but so
far I haven’t come across any published examples of this type of
modification. I was wondering if anyone could point me to references
discussing other cases or could offer possible interpretations.
I was thinking that it could be related in some way to stretching of hides
but I not really sure as to how this would have worked.
Any help with this would be appreciated, thanks a lot, Lisa Yeomans
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