Ylva, I've wondered about Romano-British cattle butchery techniques quite
a bit and have had the opportunity to make some observations as we
continue to grow the collection at Vindolanda:

(1) Cattle are the most abundant bony remains, running anywhere from
40-80% from any given context;
(2) Skull parts of cattle are frequent but 99% of them bear butcher marks;
(3) Whole cattle skulls are rarely found; generally the skull is broken
into jaw rami (sometimes still bearing teeth), left and right maxillae
(more rarely still bearing teeth), maxilla/premaxilla rami, hemicrania or
sometimes dorsal occiputs bearing horn cores, ear
region/temporal/parietal/paramastoid process, the part of the zygoma/jugal
that forms the ventral rim of the orbit; and ventral occiput with
basioccipital/foramen magnum/one or both occipital condyles. Frontals and
parietals are usually smashed into pieces smaller than playing cards; and
finally there are a lot of isolated teeth.
(4) The jaws of the cow are always separated from the skull by being
cloven (I mean cut with a sharp cleaver, not a knife) through the "neck"
of the ascending ramus, just below the articular condyle;
(5) There are ZERO cut-marks along the cheek crista or on the maxilla just
below it that would indicate a knife being used to cut across the masseter
-- therefore I have to assume that, after the jaws were "loosened" by the
cleaver cuts, the butcher then took ahold of the front part of the cow's
jaw and yanked it downward. He or she then cut back midway through the
cheeks, in the process transsecting both the masseter and the buccinator
muscles; in short, the butcher did not bother to try to cut "neatly"
through the wide tendon of insertion, instead aimed for a softer and
quicker cut, that itself might have been made with the cleaver and not a
knife;
(6) The stylohyoid bones are fractured 100% of the time, usually broken
not far below their superior end, indicating to me that after the butcher
removed the jaws as above described, he or she then forcefully yanked the
tongue forward in order to cut it off as short as possible from its
attachment to the hyoids.

One must realize how extremely sharp these cleavers must have been -- I
have an example of a goat cranium that has been cleft, not sawn, into
three sections just as cleanly as if the butcher had been slicing a loaf
of bread.  Cleaver marks on Vindolanda bones are deep, or if they are
shallow, they are frequently "chattering", i.e. the cleaver was swung
nearly parallel to the bone shaft or surface, effectively scraping it
clean.

I think you're right to say that ancient peoples knew that the tongue and
cheeks make good eating. But cheek meat is mighty chewy unless you cook it
by boiling, especially slow stewing after the manner in which good
"cabrito" can be made out of an old goat -- takes three or four days of
simmering to break down "most" of the intermuscular septa. If boillery is
the main cooking modus, you don't need sawn butchery (there was zero of
that also at Roman Vindolanda, even though they did very skillfully and
finely saw deer antlers to make tools and gaming chips). You also don't
need to do much cutting in an effort to remove meat from bones, since it's
going to fall off in the stewpot anyway.

Where I DO see cut-marks on bones, it is inevitably a fur-bearing animal
such as a dog, tree marten, or badger; or else a species, or a particular
part of an animal, that is going to be used to make leather; hence I get
cut-marks on the distal part of the limbs of dogs, cattle, horses, and
goats.

I'd be interested to know from anyone else corresponding here when sawn
butchery DOES come in....Andy Birley & crew got a late, fourth or even
possibly early fifth-century context this year and from there came the
very first example of a sawn bone not intended as a tool or a blank for
gaming manufacture, that I have ever seen out of a collection that now
numbers over 20,000 items. Not only that: the STYLE of the sawing was
crude and uneven by comparison to what I'm used to seeing the Vindolanda
artisans of the 1st through 4th centuries produce. Comments, anyone? --
Deb Bennett



> Hi Zooarcher!
>
> Bone analyses from prehistoric settlements where cranium of cattle are
> identified are often recorded as slaughter waste in Swedish reports.
> However, in comparison with metapodials and phalanges the cranium do have
> both muscles and tongue used in cooking. Although the masseter muscle is
> coarse fibrous and relatively wiry but rich in taste it is often used in
> today´s cooking. In my work with animal bones from a Swedish hill fort
> dated to the Migration Period I have recorded cutmarks in connection with
> the origin and insertion of the masseter muscle that might be connected to
> cooking.
> Does anyone have suggestions of english reports/articles that discuss
> this?
>
> Best regards,
> Ylva Telldahl
>
>
>