The mammalian remains from the Tudor site of Baynard's Castle, London: A biometrical and historical analysis

Abstract

The site of Baynard's Castle, London was excavated in 1972-73 by a team of archaeologists from the Guildhall Museum. Conditions for the preservation of skeletal material were highly favourable, and the three major dumps of rubbish on the site were found to contain large quantities of animal bone. Many of the specimens recovered were sufficiently intact to allow measurement, and for the first time for the city of London, it has been possible to carry out a detailed statistical analysis of mammalian bone from late medieval and early Tudor contexts. An account of this study, carried out at the British Museum (Natural History) between 1974-77, forms the subject of this thesis. Over 11,381 mammalian bone elements were examined, and the following species have been identified: Domestic: Horse, cattle, sheep, goat, pig, dog, cat, and rabbit. Wild: Red deer, Fallow deer, Roe deer, hare, Black rat, hedgehog, and House mouse Approximately 40,000 measurements were recorded, and these have been processed using the Varian computer at the BM(NH). From the results of the analysis of the data, it is apparent that there was an increase in the size of cattle during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries AD, and it is at this time that long horned cattle first make their appearance. Sheep, on the other hand, show no increase in size between the late middle ages and early Tudor period, and are of similar stature and build to the Soay sheep kept on the mainland today. New methods of treating faunal remains from archaeological sites have been devised; these include a method for the sexing of the pelves of sheep by means of absolute measurement, and a system for the classification and description of the horn cores of cattle.