EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 



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been used to redeposit waste collected from 

 elsewhere on the site and would explain the mixture 

 of primary butchery and cooking/consumption 

 waste. Sheep/goat display almost twice the 

 proportion of evidence for gnawing than cattle and 

 suggests that ovicaprid bones were either more 

 accessible to, or preferred by, dogs than cattle bones. 

 It is impossible to estimate the number of bones 

 that have been completely destroyed by dogs but 

 there is little doubt that those belonging to sheep/ 

 goat and pig, could have been totally consumed in 

 a relatively short space of time compared with the 

 bones of cattle. 



It is unsurprising that the bones of the larger 

 mammals possess a higher incidence of butchery 

 as this is likely to be a function of size-related 

 butchery techniques. The fairly high incidence of 

 chop marks and their location close to joints 

 indicates that dismemberment and jointing was 

 often achieved by chopping straight through the 

 limbs rather than by cutting through the tendons 

 and muscles which hold the joints together. The 

 high proportion of cattle bones in ditch fills with 

 cuts inflicted during dismemberment or filleting 

 indicates that bones which had had their meat 

 removed may have been disposed of in the ditch. 

 In contrast, pits contained the highest proportion 

 of chopped bone, again suggesting that at least some 

 primary butchery waste was deposited in pits or 

 alternatively that some meat was cooked on the 

 bone. 



Comparison with contemporaneous sites 



Animal bone assemblages have previously been 

 recovered from numerous Romano-British sites in 

 the south of England including several in Wiltshire. 

 The relative proportions of cattle and sheep are 

 often used as an indication of the influence of 

 Romanisation and according to King (1978, 211; 

 1991, 15-20), there is an increase in the numbers 

 of cattle and pigs and a decrease in the numbers of 

 sheep kept throughout the Romano-British period. 

 At Groundwell Farm, Blunsdon St. Andrew (Coy, 

 n.d.), although the Romano-British assemblage is 

 small (n=109), sheep are far more numerous than 

 cattle and pig abundant throughout the Iron Age 

 and Romano-British occupation. A significant 

 assemblage (n=3,771) was recovered from Late 

 Romano-British deposits at Butterfield Down, 

 Amesbury (Egerton 1 996); again sheep are the most 

 numerous species although cattle are also abundant 

 and pig relatively scarce. Sheep/goat were also more 

 numerous than cattle and pig scarce in the small 



assemblage (n=l 16 excluding animal burials) from 

 Maddington Farm, Shrewton (Hamilton-Dyer 

 1996). Interestingly, at Figheldean in the Avon 

 Valley (Egerton er al 1993), sheep/goat are more 

 numerous than cattle in the Early Romano-British 

 phase but cattle become the most numerous species 

 in the Late Romano-British phase and sheep/goat 

 a minor component (<3%). The dominance of 

 cattle at Wayside Farm appears to indicate that this 

 community was more influenced by Romanisation 

 than other settlements in the region, indeed the 

 proportion of cattle compares with that found on 

 many military sites (>75%) (King 1978, 225). 



The majority of cattle from Wayside Farm were 

 slaughtered between the ages of two and six years, 

 according to Maltby (1981), 'the heaviest 

 concentrations of adult cattle have so far appeared 

 only on urban and military sites' and are believed 

 to reflect the organised marketing of cattle needed 

 to supply such centres with meat. At Portchester 

 Castle, Hampshire (Grant 1975) most of the cattle 

 were aged over 5 years at the time of slaughter. At 

 Vindolanda (Hodgson 1977, 12), the majority of 

 cattle mandibles had the third molar in wear 

 (according to Legge (1982) wear commences at 

 around 26 months), and at Exeter (Maltby 1979; 

 155-156) the majority belonged to animals over 26 

 months. In contrast, the higher proportion of 

 immature animals found at rural and other 

 settlements is believed to reflect their self-sufficiency 

 and the availability of animals surplus to breeding, 

 traction and redistribution requirements (Maltby 

 1981). Ageing data from the cattle at Wayside Farm 

 suggest that cattle husbandry was geared toward 

 the production of meat, possibly to supply an urban 

 centre although adult cattle would no doubt have 

 provided milk and traction prior to their slaughter. 



A distinctive pattern of refuse disposal is also 

 noted by King (1978:225) at certain military sites, 

 for example at Little Chester pits were filled with 

 extremely fragmented cattle longbones. It has been 

 suggested by Van Mensch (in King 1978) that these 

 result from bones being smashed and boiled to 

 make broth and extract grease or marrow. The 

 fragmentary nature of the Wayside Farm material 

 suggests that many of the long bones may have been 

 treated in a similar way. 



Horse and dog generally constitute a minor 

 component of Romano-British assemblages. By 

 modern day standards the equid remains from 

 Wayside Farm belong to small ponies, this type of 

 horse was common in the Iron Age and Romano- 

 British period (Luff 1982). The majority of horses 



