A method for assessing relative wear rate in cattle molars, with an application to the Iron Age and Roman periods

Hood, Meredith, Salvagno, Lenny and Albarella, Umberto 2022. A method for assessing relative wear rate in cattle molars, with an application to the Iron Age and Roman periods. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 45 , 103613. 10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103613

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Abstract

Mandibular tooth wear patterns are important in zooarchaeological research as they can be used as a record of age at death. Age profile comparisons between different archaeological assemblages, therefore, rest on the assumption that tooth wear rates are consistent across groups. Consequently, Salvagno et al. [Journal of Archaeological Science, 127, pp. 1–17 (2021)] recently devised a method to determine relative tooth wear rate (TWR) of pig molars and assess the comparability of archaeological kill-off patterns. Their method quantifies the relative tooth wear rate between two adjacent mandibular molars and uses this to calculate the average wear rate (AWR) of an archaeological population. This paper adapts their method for use on cattle molars, to evaluate whether differences in relative tooth wear rates both within, and between, different archaeological cattle assemblages may affect age estimations. The method is applied to two case studies: Iron Age and Roman assemblages from Elms Farm, Heybridge, UK and Houten-Castellum, Netherlands. These are compared to two outgroups: a collection of European aurochs data, and a modern cattle assemblage from Germany. The method is additionally tested across species, by comparing cattle and pig relative tooth wear rates from Heybridge. Methodological considerations regarding the use of scoring systems to assess wear rate are identified and discussed. The potential causes of variation in tooth wear rates - such as diet, environmental inclusions, dental abnormalities, and genetic variation - are also considered. This study demonstrates the ease and affordability with which the tooth wear rate method can be employed. The results provide no evidence to suggest that comparisons of cattle age profiles between the Iron Age and Roman period at Heybridge or Houten-Castellum may be significantly compromised. However, differences in relative tooth wear rate were found between these two sites, and when comparing them to aurochs and modern outgroups. On this basis, it is suggested that caution be used when comparing kill-off patterns from different archaeological cattle assemblages, and that this methodology be employed routinely to increase the reliability of archaeological interpretations.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	2352-409X
Date of Acceptance:	18 August 2022
Last Modified:	13 Dec 2024 09:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/174681

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