Osteometric and molecular sexing of cattle metapodia

The oxen of Oxon Hill Manor: Pathological analyses and cattle husbandry in eighteenth‐century Maryland

“…However, metapodials, especially, are not immune to butchery or postdepositional breakage. This is particularly unfortunate, as metapodials can reveal additional information on the sex distributions of cattle (Bartosiewicz, ; Higham, :64; Svensson et al, ; Telldahl et al, ), which can provide additional evidence in the analysis of oxen and cattle husbandry. Therefore, this research developed the mPI for fragmentary metapodials so they, too, can be included in analyses of draught cattle exploitation and cattle husbandry.…”

“…Unfortunately, only 11 metapodials were complete. Metapodials are especially important in the identification and interpretation of draught exploitation, as they can reveal the sex distributions of cattle (Bartosiewicz, , p. 48; Bartosiewicz, Van Neer, & Lentacker, , p. 71; Higham, , p. 64; Higham, , p. 139; Svensson, Götherström, & Vretemark, ; Telldahl, Svensson, Götherström, & Storå, ; Thomas, , p. 88) in addition to information on the working or nonworking life of the individual vis‐à‐vis the pathologies present. As such, the author developed the Modified Pathological Index (mPI) to measure the overall degree of pathological severity for fragmentary metacarpals and metatarsals based on the PI of Bartosiewicz et al ().…”

“…The PI measures the total degree of deformation for each element and ranges from zero to one, with one being the most severely pathological (Bartosiewicz et al, 1997:20 Higham, 1969a, p. 64;Higham, 1969b, p. 139;Svensson, Götherström, & Vretemark, 2008;Telldahl, Svensson, Götherström, & Storå, 2012;Thomas, 1988, p. 88) in addition to information on the working or nonworking life of the individual vis-à-vis the pathologies present. As such, the author developed the Modified Pathological Index (mPI) to measure the overall degree of pathological severity for fragmentary metacarpals and metatarsals based on the PI of Bartosiewicz et al (1997).…”

A novel method for integrated age and sex determination from archaeological cattle mandibles

“…Age-at-death is usually determined from the state of development and wear of the mandibular teeth (Grant, 1982;Grigson, 1982). Morphological sexing is carried out on a range of elements in cattle most typically the metacarpals (Legge, 2005;Telldahl et al, 2012) and the acetabulum (Grigson, 1982). Beasley et al (1993) suggested that cattle mandibular M1 and M2 may be sexually dimorphic, but this tentative possibility seems not to have been followed up.…”

“…aDNA does not need to be recovered from a specific element but can be extracted from any bone. aDNA has previously been used to confirm osteometric sexing of archaeological cattle metapodials (Svensson et al, 2008;Telldahl et al, 2012) and mortality profiles compiled based upon the limited ageing data available from these bones (Telldahl et al, 2011). By using a sample of mandibular bone for the aDNA extraction it is possible to obtain both sex and more precise age-atdeath information for a single individual and hence to acquire population sample data that more closely approach a true mortality profile.…”