Counting cattle – Ness paper presented at Oxford conference
Dr Julia Cussans, of the UHI Archaeology Institute, is currently carrying out an overall assessment of the animal bone assemblage from the Ness of Brodgar excavation.
On Friday, she presented a well-received paper, Counting Cattle at the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney: Animal bone assessment update, at the 44th Association for Environmental Archaeology conference in Oxford.
Julia’s presentation briefly outlined what is known so far and our research questions relating to the animal bone assemblage, how we might go about answering these and integrating the animal bone data with the many other strands of evidence recovered from the site.
The themes explored included day-to-day food processing and provisioning; special events and feasting; the practical roles of cattle at the site – were they simply the preferred food source or were they also used for traction and other functions – and how did this relate to kinship and status of the Ness occupants.
Our fieldwork ended in 2024 and the focus is now firmly on the post-excavation analysis of the data gathered. This will lead to full publication, with much more available online in due course.
