Jessica,
Just to set the record straight, the two publications on cattle cranial
perforations are:
Brothwell, D., Dobney, K. and Ervynck, A. (1996). On the cause of
perforations in archaeological domestic cattle skulls. International
Journal of Osteoarchaeology 6, 471-487.
Manaseryan, N. H., Dobney, K. and Ervynck, A. (1999). On the cause of
perforations in archaeological domestic cattle skulls: New evidence.
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 9 (1): 74-75.
None (to my knowledge) have been published in 2001!
In the 1996 paper we concluded that these were either the result of
traction (use of head yokes) or more likely (since it was also present in
young medieval cattle from Belgium) a non-metrical trait.
The later paper does indeed describe cranial perforations in an
archaeological European bison, skull, which suggests the yoking hypothesis
is unlikely.
These appear to be very common in certain Roman assemblages (see the late
4th century Lincoln material included in the original study). I've also
seen published examples from a site on Hadrians wall. I don't honestly
recall seeing them in hornless individuals in the Roman material we looked
at in this study.
Keith
"J.J.Davies" wrote:
> Ylva,
> Dobney et al (apologies to the other authors for not having their
> names to hand!) in their paper in the international journal of
> osteoarchaeology in 2001 determined that it's unlikely to be
> caused by use of yokes on cattle as the condition was found in a
> prehistoric wild individual. I'm inclined to agree and think it's more
> likely to be a non-metric trait. I was just interested if it's a non-
> metric trait associated with the animal having horns.
> Jessica
--
_________________________________________________________________
Dr Keith Dobney
Department of Archaeology
University of Durham
South Road
Durham DH1 3LE
Tel: +191 374 1139
Fax: +191 374 3619
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