Apologies for the late response to your email, Joyce. I currently have two students (one PhD and one undergraduate) working on animal bone remains from the Roman small town of Ashton, Northamptonshire. The undergraduate student - John Carne - is examining material from wells and has written a short summary of his findings so far (see below), which has some parallels with your material. We would be very interested to here further progress of your research.
Best wishes
Richard
School of Archaeology and Ancient History,
University of Leicester,
University Road,
Leicester,
LE1 7RH.
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For my undergraduate dissertation, I am looking at faunal remains found in well contexts from the Roman site of Ashton, dated between the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD. I am still conducting the primary analysis, but have noted some patterns emerging. I am looking at 8 different contexts from 3 separate wells in the Ashton site (Meghann Mahoney is looking at the bulk of the faunal remains from the rest of the site as part of her doctoral project).
From the earliest context from the first well (early 2nd Century) there is a mixture of different remains, the majority being domestic pig and cattle with butchery marks, at least two domestic dogs, a fox and most interestingly the partial skeleton (both hind limbs and one forelimb) of a juvenile red deer with no butchery marks present. The other contexts from this well are almost exclusively contain cattle remains with butchery marks present.
From the second well the majority of the remains from the main context were cattle, but also present were domestic sheep/goat (with butchery marks), horse (without butchery marks), one juvenile pig (1-2 months old without butchery marks) and a partial skeleton of a kitten (without butchery marks). The latest context from this well had bones from a corvid without butchery marks.
I am just now starting the analysis of the material from the third well. The contexts with the wild animals or unusual animals, that don't appear to have butchery marks on, from the first two wells, are from either the earliest or latest periods of use.
John Carne
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From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites on behalf of Joyce van Dijk
Sent: Tue 2012-09-18 6:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ZOOARCH] several wild species in a Roman well (Belgium)
Dear all,
In the last week (to my great joy!) I have been studying the find of skeletons of a red deer calf (about a month old) , a young roe deer (male, appr. 1-1,5 years old), a young badger (ca 6 months old), a young fox (1-3 months old), a young beaver (appr. 1-1,5 years old) and two young pigs (1 month and 4-6 months old; they could be wild boar of course). They were all found together in a Roman well which contained pottery dating to the 2nd century AD. The well is part of a settlement (in Belgium) located close to a Roman road.
The skeletons are all nearly complete and none of the bones show cutmarks or any other marks.
Has anyone ever found something similar or can anyone help me in explaining why these animals were deposited in the well? Ritual comes to mind, but does anyone know of Roman rituals that entail putting wild animals in wells?
I am very curious to know if anyone has any ideas!
Many thanks,
Joyce van Dijk
Archeoplan Eco
Oude Delft 224
2611 HJ Delft
0031-15-2145295
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