Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity
The extent to which breeding populations of fallow deer were established in Roman Europe has been obscured by the possibility that the skeletal remains of the species, in particular Dama foot bones and antlers, were traded over long distances as objects in their own right. This paper sets out to ref...
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis
2014
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53097/ |
| _version_ | 1848798876688973824 |
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| author | Miller, Holly Carden, Ruth F. Evans, Jane Lamb, Angela L. Madgwick, Richard Osborne, David Symmons, Robert Sykes, Naomi |
| author_facet | Miller, Holly Carden, Ruth F. Evans, Jane Lamb, Angela L. Madgwick, Richard Osborne, David Symmons, Robert Sykes, Naomi |
| author_sort | Miller, Holly |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | The extent to which breeding populations of fallow deer were established in Roman Europe has been obscured by the possibility that the skeletal remains of the species, in particular Dama foot bones and antlers, were traded over long distances as objects in their own right. This paper sets out to refine our understanding of the evidence for the transportation of living and dead fallow deer in Iron Age and Roman Europe. To achieve this, museum archives containing purportedly early examples of Dama antler were searched, with available specimens sampled for carbon, nitrogen and strontium isotope analyses, and compared with data for archaeological fallow deer from across Europe. Importantly, the resulting isotope values can be interpreted in light of new modern baseline data for fallow deer presented here. Together these multi-isotope results for modern and archaeological fallow deer provide a more critical perspective on the transportation of fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:26:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-53097 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:26:44Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-530972020-05-04T16:53:49Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53097/ Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity Miller, Holly Carden, Ruth F. Evans, Jane Lamb, Angela L. Madgwick, Richard Osborne, David Symmons, Robert Sykes, Naomi The extent to which breeding populations of fallow deer were established in Roman Europe has been obscured by the possibility that the skeletal remains of the species, in particular Dama foot bones and antlers, were traded over long distances as objects in their own right. This paper sets out to refine our understanding of the evidence for the transportation of living and dead fallow deer in Iron Age and Roman Europe. To achieve this, museum archives containing purportedly early examples of Dama antler were searched, with available specimens sampled for carbon, nitrogen and strontium isotope analyses, and compared with data for archaeological fallow deer from across Europe. Importantly, the resulting isotope values can be interpreted in light of new modern baseline data for fallow deer presented here. Together these multi-isotope results for modern and archaeological fallow deer provide a more critical perspective on the transportation of fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity. Taylor & Francis 2014-09-18 Article PeerReviewed Miller, Holly, Carden, Ruth F., Evans, Jane, Lamb, Angela L., Madgwick, Richard, Osborne, David, Symmons, Robert and Sykes, Naomi (2014) Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity. Environmental Archaeology, 21 (3). pp. 246-259. ISSN 1749-6314 Roman Britain; Fallow deer; Damadama; Carbon isotopes; Nitrogen isotopes; Strontium isotopes https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000043 doi:10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000043 doi:10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000043 |
| spellingShingle | Roman Britain; Fallow deer; Damadama; Carbon isotopes; Nitrogen isotopes; Strontium isotopes Miller, Holly Carden, Ruth F. Evans, Jane Lamb, Angela L. Madgwick, Richard Osborne, David Symmons, Robert Sykes, Naomi Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity |
| title | Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity |
| title_full | Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity |
| title_fullStr | Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity |
| title_full_unstemmed | Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity |
| title_short | Dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity |
| title_sort | dead or alive?: investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity |
| topic | Roman Britain; Fallow deer; Damadama; Carbon isotopes; Nitrogen isotopes; Strontium isotopes |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53097/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53097/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53097/ |