Casgliadau Arlein

This is an almost complete burial of a cow radiocarbon dated to 247-404 cal AD.

Its remains are poor to moderately well preserved and heavily fragmented, so its gender can't be confirmed. Its mandible is preserved well enough for a tooth wear analysis tell us the animal died at 8-10 years old. The bones show no signs of butchery meaning the cow probably wasn't skinned before burial.

This all indicates an animal that lived out its natural working life and was buried with some ceremony. A burial of this kind is quite rare, perhaps the cow in question held some unique sentimental value with the villa community? It was buried relatively closely to two inhumation burials of a female and a male.

Research into possibly ritualistic animal burials include Levitan 1993; Fulford 2001; Woodward and Woodward 2004; King 2005.