Cattle, consumption and causewayed enclosures (response to Parmenter, Johnson and Outram)

Bibliographic Data

ID7423830
AuthorsJ Thomas (0000-0003-3933-1264, Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume48
Issue5
Pages729-744
Publication date2016-09-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWorld Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-8243 • E-ISSN: 1470-1375
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00438243.2016.1229214
OpenAlexW2524406613
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited46

This article takes issue with Parmenter, Johnson and Outram’s (2015) characterization of the faunal assemblages from causewayed enclosures as indistinguishable from those from domestic sites. Their study of bone processing at Etton is helpful and innovative, but they neglect other aspects of assemblage variability, while their account of Neolithic subsistence in Britain underplays differences across space and time. A distinction can be made at causewayed enclosures between bones that have been minimally processed and swiftly buried, and others that have been picked over and stored in surface middens. The latter appear to predominate at the single-circuit enclosure at Etton, but this need not mean that feasting did not take place at the site. Finally, the significance of a comparison of the remains at Etton with the Linearbandkeramik site Ludwinowo 7 is questioned, as it is probable that feasting also took place at the latter site

Aesthetics · Agriculture · Archaeology · Art · Assemblage (archaeology · Biology · Consumption (sociology · Enclosure · Fauna · Faunal assemblage · Geography · Subsistence agriculture · Taphonomy · Zooarchaeology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Ecology · Engineering · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · History · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology