What Can We Learn From Animal Bones?

Animal bones found at archaeological excavations can provide valuable information about the past. They can tell us about butchery and eating habits, tool use, and the environment the bones were disposed of or buried in.

First, we must identify which animal the bones belong to. We can look at the overall size and robusticity of the bones, as well as the cranium (skull) and the mandible (jaw). The size, curvature, and profile of the mandible display distinct differences between animals. Sheep mandibles flare at the curve of the jaw, which differs from the more sloping profile of pig mandibles.

Pigs have one of the most distinctive teeth of domestic mammals. As omnivores, their teeth need to be able to both slice and grind their food, and so they display more pronounced canines and incisors compared to herbivores. Their teeth have flat shaped cusps ideal for their diet, this contrasts with the “W” shaped profile of sheep teeth, deer and cattle.

Sheep mandible (left), pig mandible (right)

Once the bone has been identified, we can examine the texture for signs of use by humans. Looking at the long bones for marks and scrapes can indicate intentional defleshing and butchery.

Differences in butchery methods and skill can lead to differences in cut marks, and it can sometimes be difficult to identify signs of intentional butchery. The clearest way to do so is by observing a V-shaped cross section. This V shape is characteristic of cutting with a lithic or metal knife, whereas a U-shaped mark indicates stone tools were used. 

Sheep tibia with cut marks (left), split cow radius (right)

Worked bone is also common, and indicates bone was also used to make tools, decorations and jewellery. Bone can be polished and incised with a decorative pattern.

This worked Roman sheep metapodia that was used as a handle for a blade or utensil

The colour and condition of the bones can also reveal information about the environment the remains were discarded or buried in, as well as actions of other animals.

When bones are discarded there is often still meat on the bone, and this can attract rodents which leave distinct parallel grooves and scrapes.  

A bright white bone indicates it was bleached by sunlight, whereas black and dark brown suggest exposure to bacteria, fungi and soil minerals. Green marks indicate contact with copper; this is a frequent occurrence in human remains due to grave goods. By noting these observations, we can construct a profile of the animal's environment.

Overall, there is much to be learned from animal bones in the archaeological context!

Lauren

Collections placement student

 

 

Words on Wednesdays: Bones

"In nature, there is no separation between design, engineering, and fabrication; the bone does it all"

Neri Oxman 

Why bone? Bones are exciting as they connect us with the past, but also feel forbidden as they are not a part of everyday life. They can prove useful as they survive through time where other materials (e.g. wood) may not.

Visitors to the Roman Baths find out about bones in archaeology

Past societies used bone to create different objects. Although this may seem gross to us now, bone was a readily available material and therefore an obvious choice to build things from. Many artefacts were made from cow or sheep bones, probably because they were the most commonly butchered animals. But how did the people of the past actually use bone?

Roman gaming counter

Imagine a Roman beating their competitors with this gaming counter. Gaming is a forever concept; whereas today we play on the Playstation, Roman games were far more rudimentary but just as competitive. One inscription from a Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum game board in Rome read ‘Levate dalocu, ludere nescis, idiota recede’ (Jump up, push off, you don’t know how to play, get out stupid) evidencing how heated games could get!

Gaming was clearly important as a 24 year old man from Lullingstone villa was buried in AD300 with his gaming board and 30 gaming piece (15 red and 15 white) possibly so he could play eternally in the afterlife. I wonder if anyone has ever been buried with a Playstation?

Two Victorian toothbrushes made from bone and animal hair

Picture the Victorians using their bone bristle toothbrushes. It’s hard to believe that it was not until 1780 that the Europeans produced a bristle toothbrush. Before this, rags and salt or soot were rubbed on teeth to keep them clean.

Our dental saviour was William Addis who, whilst incarcerated, found a bone on the floor and connected this with animal hairs to create the bristle brush. This was perfectly timed as the toothbrush industry boomed with the increase in refined sugar travelling from the West Indies. Toothbrushes were used with toothpaste made from odd materials such as soot, chalk or even powdered cuttlefish! Would you try that?

Bone object handling table

We are incredibly lucky to have objects like this readily available, teaching us the importance of everyday ritual to the people of the past. They have truly all been worked to the bone!

Vikki
Roman Society Collections Placement

References:
Alcock, Joan. Life in Roman Britain. English Heritage (1996) pp. 54-5.

Festival of Archaeology: Roman Death and Burial

As part of the Festival of Archaeology the Roman Baths Collections team were in Sydney Gardens exploring the theme of Roman death and burial.

Burials are a major source of information that helps us to understand life in Roman Britain. Burials provide evidence about physique, disease, social organisations and religious beliefs and rituals.

Emily preparing the Death and Burial display at Sydney Gardens

So how can we tell a burial is Roman?

In Roman Britain you were typically buried in one of two ways, either cremation or inhumation. A cremation burial is the burial of cremated remains in an urn or pot and inhumation is the burial of body in a grave or tomb.  

Cremation with grave goods became more widespread following the Roman invasion in 43 AD, but later gave way to inhumation with fewer grave goods, possibly as other religions, such as Christianity and Mithraism grew in popularity.

Roman coarseware jar containing cremated remains, on display at the Roman Baths museum

What is a grave good? 

An object buried with the body, mostly of inorganic material such as pottery, jewellery, weapons and toys. Organic items would have been deposited with the body, but have since decayed. Grave goods can help us date a burial as well as provide insight into the life of the individual. Grave goods often reflected the wealth or status of the individual, or their family.

They were also ritual objects, with pottery at a burial site often being a sign of ritual feasting. Feasts were held as the deceased was buried, or sometimes days after. Food was also left as an offering for the deceased. These practices explain why we find food and beverage vessels at different levels at a burial site. 

Selection of grave goods: Clockwise from top left to right; flagon rim, samian sherd, jar base, rim sherd, iron brooch, commemorative bronze coin of Septimus Severus with funerary pyre depicted on the reverse, selection of hobnails

What would they be buried in?

The first materials to decompose are organic such as wood, food, and clothing. This leaves us without much knowledge of what clothing a person was buried in. Items such as pins, brooches and hobnails are the only remaining clues for a person’s clothing. Pins and brooches were used to hold together a shroud or toga.

Hobnails are common remaining fragments of a Roman shoe. This tells us the individual could have been clothed when they were buried or that the shoes were placed as a symbolic grave good in or outside the coffin. The nails would have been screwed into the sole of the shoe, similar to a modern football boot.

Female skeleton excavated at Batheaston with hobnails found in situ at the soles of the feet

What do you think would survive in a burial today that could tell us about life in 2019?

Imogen Westcott

Placement

A Female Burial: The Specialist Studies

Continuing on from last week’s blog about my favourite lady, this week’s blog is about the specialist studies conducted on the two burials from Walcot Street. Stable isotope analysis and DNA studies were carried out on both individuals in order to learn more about these burials.

The excavation of my favourite lady

In order to learn about an individual’s diet, bone collagen can be used for isotope analysis. The term “you are what you eat” often rings true! Our body tissues have been formed using components from the food we have consumed over our lifetimes and these affect the ratio of stable isotopes in our bodies. These ratios can be measured to determine what food types a human consumed in their lifetime. This can reveal a huge amount of information about their diet and status.

The preservation of my favourite lady’s bone collagen was incredible and the results from the isotope analysis show that she was getting around 10-20% of her dietary protein from marine sources. The isotope analysis results were compared to the Romano-British population of Poundbury, Dorset where marine foods indicated high status. 

Although my favourite lady was obtaining around 10-20% of her protein from marine sources, that still did not place her within the ‘elite’ groups from the comparative site. She also was not placed within the ‘normal’ group of individuals so it can be assumed that her status was somewhere in between these. The results were compared to those at Poundbury because as far as we can tell, my favourite lady was Roman. However, ‘Roman’ covers a long period of time, and sadly we don’t have enough information to pinpoint her date more accurately.

Results from the isotope analysis of bone collagen from the male and female burials, created by M.P. Richards from the University of Bradford, 2001

The male from Syria is closely linked with my favourite lady as they were found at the same time. Studies were conducted into investigating whether these two individuals were related, and DNA analysis can potentially answer these questions. Teeth were extracted from both the Syrian man and my favourite lady in order to establish any kinship links through mitochondrial DNA (which is passed down from mother to child through generations). 

The result from these studies suggests that the male is from North Africa/Middle East and that my favourite lady has a maternal lineage of British/Scandinavian origin. It is emphasised in the report that these results only rule out the fact that these individuals are not related through maternal heritage, but does not rule out any other kinship links!

My favourite lady's teeth, used to study the mitochondrial DNA

Although we have been able to learn a huge amount of information about my favourite lady from her skeleton and specialist studies, there is still a sense of mystery surrounding her! Maybe one day these questions can be answered…

Dulcie Newbury

Collections Intern

A female burial: The hobbled road to recognition.

Two burials, one male and one female, were discovered in 1999 during an excavation on Walcot Street undertaken by Bath Archaeological Trust. Both of these burials attracted a lot of interest from the public and media, including an episode of ‘Meet the Ancestors’ on BBC. One of these burials (the male from Syria) is currently on display within the museum; however the second burial is not.

I first became interested in these burials during my A Level studies; however since starting my placement at the Roman Baths my interest in the female burial has grown enormously. The female is often referred to as ‘the female buried with the Syrian man’. I dislike this term as I feel like it means the interest lies primarily with the male, and the female does not get the interest or recognition she deserves so I prefer to refer to her as ‘my favourite lady’!

 

The cranium of my favourite lady

A number of interesting things can be discovered through the study of the skeleton, and luckily 90% of my favourite lady’s skeleton is present. From looking at the pelvis there is no doubt that this individual is female and from studying the length of her femur it is estimated that she was roughly 5ft tall. The wear on her teeth places her between 26-45 years old, with a closer estimation of 30 years old.

The mandible of my favourite lady. The wear on the teeth was examined to estimate her age

The pelvis of my favourite lady, used to determine her sex

Another interesting aspect of this skeleton is the severe compound fracture on both her tibia and fibula which would have pierced her skin and caused a lot of damage. There is evidence for very minimal treatment of this injury, whereas today’s treatment for such a severe fracture would be urgent surgery, antibiotics to treat infection, and internal/external fixtures. It is incredible to think that my favourite lady had such minimal treatment on such a severe injury!

Left and right tibia of my favourite lady. The left tibia shows the extent of the compound fracture. Note that the bones have fully fused together but are still very wonky!

By looking at the fracture of her leg we can tell that this wasn’t the cause of death as the bones had enough time to fuse back together (albeit very wonky!) She went on to develop osteoarthritis due to the fact that her left leg was shorter than her right, causing her to hobble. Osteoarthritis is evident on bones as they take on a polished effect on the joint surface where two bones are rubbing together.

Left: A talus showing no signs of osteoarthiritis. Right: The talus of my favourite lady, showing polished bone

The image above shows a comparison between the left talus of an individual who shows no signs of osteoarthritis (left) compared to the left talus of my favourite lady (right). The joint surfaces on my favourite lady’s talus have taken on the polished effect which is common in osteoarthritis.

This is just scratching the surface of all the interesting things we can learn from my favourite lady. Next week’s blog will be looking at the results from multiple specialist studies conducted on her remains!

Dulcie Newbury

Collections Intern.

Festival of Archaeology: Baffling Bones!

Last month, we decided to assemble a table of animal bones and activities for the Festival of Archaeology, which was held at the Roman Baths on Monday 17^th July. This involved sorting through and selecting an appropriate variety of animal bones, that were suitable for the public to handle and use for the activities.

Once we had chosen the bones, we then had a task of identifying what part of the skeleton they came from and what animal it belonged to (this could be hard, especially if they were broken!) After going through 5kg of assorted animal bones and fragments, we had a huge mixture, that ranged from a pig’s vertebrae (part of the spine) to a horse’s tibia (upper back leg bone) and a cow’s mandible (jaw).

Vicky and Maddy with their 'Baffling Bones!' handling table

We also set up an activity called “Baffling Bones!”, the aim of this was to see if people could identify the bones provided, and try to figure out which animal they came from. For the younger children, there was a game, where they were given a picture of a cow’s skeleton, and they had to put the labels of bones in the correct places to win a sticker!

On the table, we also had a cow’s skull which was found in the Temple Precinct (thought to be medieval) and photos of the Temple Precinct under excavation. 

I brought the bones out again for Tuesday Times Tables the next day, and had a total of 96 visitors in 2 hours!

If you missed the Festival of Archaeology or the start of our Tuesday Times Tables, don't panic! Handling tables continue every Tuesday evening until the 29^th of August.

Maddy

Placement Student

Way Back Wednesday: the Science of Skeletons

As well as organising the Science Week events at the Roman Baths, I was able to design a handling table. My topic of choice was human remains, as I have an interest in them and there is a lot they can tell you. One issue with this is the ethics of choosing to have human remains in public areas of the site as visitors may not wish to see human remains outside a case. This was overcome by producing a sign to warn visitors about the remains on show and to only have skeletal elements not whole skeletons out.

My research for the table was into how you could age and sex a skeleton from different elements. It was hard to condense the information down into language that the everyday reader would understand as there are lots of technical words such as diaphysis and epiphysis for the shaft and ends of long bones respectively.  This could have be why information sheets explaining how to do this have not been produced before.

Skull of a Roman Male

One common comment made about the table was about the condition of the teeth.  Teeth are the most common skeletal element found as they are resistant to chemical and physical destruction. The teeth which attracted the most attention belonged to a 25 year old Roman male, and the condition divided opinion. Some said they were well looked after and in better condition than the modern equivalent, while others said they were worn. The teeth could be in better condition due to the fact the Romans didn’t consume as much sugar as the modern population, as sugar wasn't available in Europe at this time. Instead, they were worn due to milling methods used to make flour leaving sand which in turn wore down the teeth.

The assessment of skeletal remains is very subjective, as this comment on the teeth wear shows, so even if you know the correct methods you might still be wrong, and if sexing you only have a 50/50 chance of getting it right!

Katharine Foxton

Bradford University Placement Student