Description

Summary: A cattle right posterior first phalanx from Grove Farm, Market Lavington, excavated by Wessex Archaeology in 1990.

Research results

Holmes (2019) has compared the Early Medieval animal bone assemblages from Market Lavington, Ramsbury, and Cadley Road as part of the University of Leicester FeedSax project. They found that sheep were slaughtered at prime meat-production age throughout the period at all three sites, with a similar story for Cattle except for at Ramsbury, where cattle were slaughtered much later in life. Alveolar recession was noted in 33% of sheep, over twice the national average, suggesting a genetic predisposition in the local population, whilst foot pathologies of cattle were unusually common at Early Saxon Market Lavington, suggesting they may have been used as draught animals early on at this site.

McKerracher (2022) sampled this bone for radiocarbon dating as part of the University of Leicester 'Feedsax' project, in order to clarrify the dating of one of a number of poorly dated Early Saxon contexts. The result of 534-604 cal AD (90.4% confidence) has confirmed the expected dating.