Oh, how totally cool. Please go 'ave a look at the Vindolanda research
reports, either the more recent one with color plates from 2006, or else
the older papers by Hodgson and/or the many semi-popular booklets by Robin
Birley, wherein there are photos of cow skulls used for target practice. I
looked at these fairly closely for the 2006 report and we published some
closeup photography in there of the holes in the skulls made on impact
from ballista bullets, lance heads, and iron arrowheads, which made it
clear that they were not shooting at some dried-up old skull but rather
had selected a fresh-butchered head with the hide still on. The bone was
'wet' when it was shot and you can tell this from the way the
microfragmented bone substance 'surged' upward around the edges of the
hole, not to mention the lack of cracks radiating outward from the hole.

Also, consistently these 'target skulls' are modified 'round the back,
with the foramen magnum hacked with a few quick chops to make it bigger,
so that the head could then be stuck onto a pole. Likewise, a little
different sort of situation, but with similar-looking evidence of
impalement, is a high majority of our cattle scapulas appear to have been
impaled on iron hooks, which goes along with the fact that we have way too
many scapulas for the likely number of actual cows on site: meaning the
Roman army was importing smoked beef shoulder from somewhere else, i.e. up
in Denmark maybe, where I readily picture this beefy proto-Viking type
with hairy shoulders walking down the center aisle of a long stone barn
while pulling a cart loaded with fresh-slaughtered shoulders, lagging them
one by one onto iron hooks as he passed through the smoke....

....of course because the scapula is thin, and Mr. Rus was large, the
scapulas show not only a hole in the blade but often a set of concentric
impact cracks, with or without some radial cracks. The 'bust out' is
always from medial to lateral, meaning that our red-headed friend knew to
hang the shoulders hide-side-out. Yet that these bones, like the 'target
skulls', were wet when impacted is evident from the relative paucity of
such cracks, as well as from the wee rim (visible with hand lens) of
finely comminuted powdered bone substance which 'surged' up with impact
along the rim of the hole made by the point of the iron hook.

I expect that if these characters you've got who seem straight out of the
Silmarillion or the Ring Cycle were testing their newforged weapons, you
will find evidence on the bones not only of the test-hacks, but that they
were done while the bone was still wet, and also while the limb or chunk
of a limb was hung on a peg or a post so that it would stand up to impact
as an enemy's body would and not just swing around i.e. as if hung from
the ceiling by a rope. Cheers, and I'd love to see this paper with a full
report when it hits the streets -- Dr. Deb

> To clarify - the site Dani refers to is an Iron Age cave, on the island of
> Skye lying at the bottom of a steep cliff .  Presently it is hard to
> access, by foot, although a lack sea level change in this part of Scotland
> suggests it was the same in the Iron Age.  The cave has a number of
> hearths and evidence of metal working activity (potential in iron smithing
> and smelting and smithing in bronze), and a bit of wolf, a perforated
> human skull, antler pegs,  antler picks, a horn button and a ivory sword
> pommel....and more.
>
> The assemblage to date is made up of 85% old female cattle (MNI 16 to
> date) who have not been neatly butchered for meat, but bear evidence of
> non-normative patterns of butchery, with heavy bladed tools i.e. with many
> whole bones semi-chopped - i.e. heavy blade entered and removed without
> breaking up the bone - somewhat like sword injuries on humans.   Some of
> these could be enacted on relatively complete animals whilst others have
> to have occurred once animals were divided to a greater or lesser degree.
> There are also many relatively complete bones and is some evidence for
> heating of the mid-shaft of bones followed by 'cracking' (but not
> chopping) for marrow.
>
> Now how the cattle got to the cave remains unclear; initial analysis
> suggests there are some entire individuals present.   Some butchery may be
> associated with division of cattle to get them into the cave, however as I
> mentioned sometime the bones are not entirely cut and the copious hacking
> marks do not respect any joints.  Whoever these folk where they did not
> care about not blunting their weapons (indeed were they testing them on
> cattle carcasses?).
>
> We are awaiting this seasons material (hurrah) but Dani has been looking
> at some of the material for her undergraduate dissertation and we have
> been speculating on non-normative butchery.   So if not standard carcass
> division, nor butchery for cooking, nor directly assoicated with marrow
> extraction nor 'roman style' stew....what was this butchery for?
>
> Anyhow that is enough for a friday afternoon....
>
>
> Jacqui Mulville (PhD),
> Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology
> Public Engagement and STEM Ambassador
>
> Osteography - Art and Arche(zo)ology continues at
> http://osteography.wordpress.com/
>
> School of History, Archaeology and Religion,
> Cardiff University, Humanities Building, Colum Drive, CARDIFF, CF10 3EU
> http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/share/contactsandpeople/academicstaff/K-O/mulville-jacqui-dr-overview_new.html
>
>
> Tel: + 44 (0) 29 2087 4247
> Fax: + 44 (0) 29 2087 4929
>