Thanks everybody who contributed. Consensus is that the mandible is horse, since the signifying characters are only valid for the molars, not the premolars. The long bones on the other hand are still unclear. Anyone got references to a good dataset for Roman donkeys, prefereably including juvenile ones?
/Lena
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lena Strid" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "ZooArch" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, 20 July, 2012 12:10:42 PM
Subject: Mystery equids - donkey or small horse?
Dear all,
I have a couple of notably small equids from a Roman site on the south
coast of England. A small number of donkeys have been found in
contemporary sites elsewhere in Britain, so I can't exclude donkey.
However, only one longbone is fully fused and complete. Comparisons with
a donkey and a pony at the English Heritage reference collection was
less helpful, as my bones were right inbetween in size...
I also have one mandible, where the folds on some teeth are more like
horse and some are more like donkey (using the pictures from Cluny
Johnstone's Ph.D. as a guide -
http://www.york.ac.uk/media/archaeology/documents/researchdegrees/phdthesis/CJohnstonePhDvol2.pdf
(p.164-166)).
If anyone here could help me I would be very grateful. I have put photos
of the bones up on a flickr set, with measurements where possible.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10435422@N07/sets/72157630620711400/
/Lena
Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information.
This email has been processed by SmoothZap - www.smoothwall.net
|