Feeding Stonehenge: cuisine and consumption at the Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls.
Craig, Oliver E. ; Shillito, Lisa-Marie ; Albarella, Umberto 等
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[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Introduction
Henges are distinctive monuments of the Late Neolithic in Britain,
defined as ditched enclosures in which a bank is constructed outside the
ditch. The largest is Durrington Walls (Figure 1), a 17ha monument near
Stonehenge. Excavations at Durringon Walls from 1966-1968 revealed the
remains of two timber circles, the Northern and Southern Circles, within
the henge enclosure (Wainwright & Longworth 1971). More recent
excavations (2004-2007) have identified a settlement that pre-dates the
henge by a few decades and is concurrent with the main construction
phase of Stonehenge (Parker Pearson 2007; Parker Pearson et al. 2007;
Thomas 2007). Middens and pits, with substantial quantities of animal
bones, broken Grooved Ware ceramics and other food-related debris,
accumulated quickly; the settlement has an estimated start date of
2535-2475 cal BC (95% probability) and a use-life of 0-55 years (95%
probability). In the broadest sense, this new evidence confirms that
Durrington Walls was a place of feasting (Richards & Thomas 1984;
Albarella & Serjeantson 2002). The non-uniform deposition of food
remains and cooking apparatus within and between houses, in both
domestic and public spaces, and between middens and pits, however,
prompts a more detailed investigation of how foods were prepared and
consumed.
Here we aim to investigate culinary activities at Durrington Walls
by conducting detailed analysis of food remains and pottery contents at
a fine contextual resolution. This information is required to understand
the role of the site in the Stonehenge monumental landscape and, more
broadly, to expand our limited knowledge of Late Neolithic consumption
practices, including more specific elucidation of different feasting
activities (Dietler & Hayden 2010). By investigating how different
foodstuffs were prepared, consumed and deposited, we may also come
closer to understanding how foods were valued and perceived in Neolithic
Britain. Such information is missing from debates regarding the social
and economic significance of foodstuffs during this period, which
instead have tended to rank foods either in terms of their calorific or
nominal prestige value.
Site context and background
Durrington Walls and the adjacent site of Woodhenge lie 2.8km
north-east of Stonehenge. Dense occupation layers have been detected
beneath the west, east and south arms of the henge bank at Durrington
Walls (Farrer 1918; Stone et al. 1954; Parker Pearson 2012), revealing
the large extent of the pre-henge settlement. Beneath the east entrance
of the henge were the remains of seven house floors (Parker Pearson et
al. 2007; Figure lb). These houses were small and square (c. 5.25 x
5.25m) with rounded corners. Remains of two house floors were found
within the Western Enclosures (Thomas 2007) and five small mini-henges
within the henge interior; the two excavated mini-henges each contained
a house within a circular palisade. Neither house was any larger than
those beneath the east entrance. Immediately north-east of the Southern
Circle there is a D-shaped building (c. 11 x 13m; not shown), originally
interpreted as a fenced midden (Wainwright & Longworth 1971). It was
plaster-floored but lacked a hearth, and has been reinterpreted as a
meeting house or public building.
The dates for Woodhenge, the Durrington Walls settlement, the first
phase of the Southern Circle and its avenue (connecting the henge to the
river) are similar to those for the main stage of construction at
Stonehenge (stage 2: when the sarsen circle and trilithons were
erected), starting 2760-2510 cal BC and ending 2470-2300 cal BC (95%
probability) (Darvill et al. 2012). This supports the hypothesis that
Stonehenge and Durrington Walls were built as a single complex, linked
by avenues via a short stretch of the River Avon (Parker Pearson &
Ramilisonina 1998). There was a dichotomy in their use: Durrington Walls
has no burials other than a single cremation at Woodhenge (and four
loose human bones), whereas Stonehenge has 63 excavated cremation
burials, out of a probable 120 or more (Parker Pearson et al. 2009).
Furthermore, Durrington Walls was a place of habitation and feasting;
Stonehenge clearly was not, having produced only 11 sherds of Grooved
Ware and a limited amount of animal bones (Cleal et al. 1995: 350 &
437). Durrington Walls was most likely the village where the builders of
stage 2 of Stonehenge lived.
The use of ceramic vessels
Large assemblages of Grooved Ware were recovered from Durrington
Walls in 1966-1967 (5861 sherds; Wainwright & Longworth 1971) and
2004-2007 (6697 sherds). They derive from many hundreds of vessels of
different sizes, made from a limited range of clays. Most were probably
made locally but some contain fossil shell from Kimmeridge Clay sources
over 20km away. Molecular and isotopic analyses of lipids are widely
employed to investigate pottery use (Evershed 2008). Previous lipid
analysis of British Late Neolithic ceramics has already shown that
Grooved Ware was more closely associated with processing porcine
products than other types of British Neolithic pottery (Mukherjee et al.
2008), but intra-site variation in the use and deposition of pottery has
not yet been considered. Here, 317 Grooved Ware sherds from a range of
contexts at Durrington Walls were sampled for lipid analysis. Care was
taken to avoid repeated sampling of the same pots by considering the
form, decoration and fabric of individual sherds selected for analysis.
Lipids were extracted using a similar protocol to previous studies of
pottery from Durrington Walls (Mukherjee et al. 2008) and analysed by
gas chromatography (GC), GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and
GC-combustion-isotope ratio-MS (GC-C-IRMS). Full details of the
extraction procedure and analytical methods are provided in the
Supplementary Online Material.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
Classification of lipids
Analysis by GC and GC-MS confirmed that 151 sherds (48%) contained
interpretable amounts of lipids (<5 [micro]g [g.sup.-1]), with a mean
lipid content of 341 [micro]g [g.sup.-1] and a maximum of 9.8mg
[g.sup.-1]. In all cases, the lipid profiles were dominated by fatty
acids of mid-chain length ([C.sub.16:0], [C.sub.18:0]) typical of
degraded animal fats, although trace amounts of degraded vegetable waxes
were detected in a small number of sherds (Supplementary Table S2).
Tri-, di- and mono- acylglycerides with distributions typical of
terrestrial animal fats were also detected as well as long-chain ketones
([C.sub.31], [C.sub.33] and [C.sub.35]) from the transformation of fatty
acids through the exposure to heat (Raven et al. 1997). To distinguish
these animal fats further, GC-C-IRMS was carried out; this determined
the [delta][sup.13]C values of [C.sub.16:0] and [C.sub.18:0] fatty acids
in extracts from 122 sherds. These GC-C-IRMS data are combined with
those (n = 20) previously reported (Mukherjee et al. 2008) and
summarised in Figure 2. The difference in [delta][sup.13]C values for
[C.sub.16:0] and [C.sub.18:0] fatty acids ([DELTA][sup.13]C) from each
vessel is shown against the approximate range for modern porcine,
ruminant carcass and dairy fats obtained from animals reared in southern
England (Copley et al. 2003). Together, these comprise the largest
dataset of pottery use at a single site.
The GC-C-IRMS data show a large variation in the [DELTA][sup.13]C
(Figure 2), which relates to the different origins of the fats present
in the pottery. The lower [DELTA][sup.13]C (i.e. < -3[per thousand])
are typical of ruminant dairy fats and some wild ruminant carcass fat
(Craig et al. 2012) although, given the near absence of deer in the
faunal assemblage, the latter can probably be ruled out.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
The higher values (i.e. > -1 [per thousand]) are more typical of
porcine carcass fats, which would seem the most likely source given the
abundance of pig remains found at the site. The dominance of pigs in the
faunal assemblage (Figure 3) is not, however, reflected in the pottery
use. Only 27% of the analysed sherds have [DELTA][sup.13]C values that
fall within the range for modern porcine fats (Figure 2). Rather,
ruminant products were preferentially processed in pottery, even
accounting for relative differences in carcass weights.
Such simple assignations mask the complex process of mixing
however, as well as any potential isotopic differences between modern
and ancient values. It is worth noting that the large number of sherds
(n = 72) with [DELTA][sup.13]C values consistent with modern ruminant
carcass fats could theoretically be produced by mixing pork and dairy
fats, taking into consideration variation in fatty acid concentration
and [delta][sup.13]C. If this were the case however, we would expect a
consistently high number of vessels with [DELTA][sup.13]C values that
fall between ruminant carcass and dairy fat ranges, which is not
observed (Figure 2). Instead, pots used for mixing dairy products and
meat, either together or sequentially, are underrepresented, as
demonstrated by the trough in the frequency distribution (Figure 2)
between dairy and carcass fats. At the very minimum, it seems that some
care was taken in manipulating dairy foods. There is less evidence of
any separation of beef or pork in the Durrington Walls Grooved Ware
assemblage.
Spatial variation in the use of pottery
The spatial distribution of food residues within the Durrington
Walls settlement was largely patterned according to architecture and
activities. For example, the distribution of [DELTA][sup.13]C values of
lipids from pottery deposited in pit features (n = 16) and the large
midden (n = 58) located around the houses, and those within the various
features associated with the Southern Circle (n = 22) are significantly
different (Kruskal-Wallis Test, H = 12.9, P = 0.002; Figure 2). Of 16
sherds analysed from 10 separate pit features, 11 sherds had high
[DELTA][sup.13]C values consistent with pork fat, while only one sherd
was used to process dairy products (Figure 3). In contrast, the majority
(12/22) of sherds from contexts associated with the Southern Circle have
values consistent with dairy fats. Pots from within the D-shaped
structure north-east of the Southern Circle, now interpreted as a
meeting hall, and the open area next to it in front of the entrance to
the Southern Circle, were almost entirely used for dairy products. These
areas were significant public spaces and are also associated with a
slightly higher relative proportion of cattle bone (Figure 3). The
residues on pottery from the large midden deposit (context 593) were
more variable. Across the midden, discrete accumulations of pottery,
flint and animal bone associated with different houses are evident (Chan
2009), but there is little evidence for differences in the use of
pottery between these separate deposits.
Variation in the use of pottery by vessel dimensions
Overall, there was a positive correlation between fabric thickness
and rim diameter (r = 0.52, n = 237, p = 0.<001), confirming that
larger vessels tend to have thicker walls. Sizes of pots varied
according to what purpose they were used. There were significant
differences in the distribution of vessel thicknesses between pots used
predominantly to prepare ruminant carcass, porcine and dairy products
(Kruskal-Wallis H = 13.5, n = 137, p = 0.001). Pots with porcine
products were on average 2-3mm thicker than those used for dairy, which
equates to c. 8-10cm wider rims. Pots used predominantly to process
ruminant carcass fats were of intermediate size. Correspondence between
vessel thickness (size) and use is not surprising, but it suggests that
Grooved Ware pottery was deliberately produced or selected for distinct
culinary uses. This may be because dairy products required different
preparation methods to meat, involving more careful manipulation of
small quantities for consumption by a limited number of people. In
contrast, larger, bucket-sized vessels could be envisaged for processing
the huge amounts of surplus carcass products produced after pigs or cows
were slaughtered for consumption events on a larger scale.
Pots deposited in pits (n = 343) tend to be thicker walled than
those deposited in the large midden (n = 2004) and on house floors (n =
979), and the distribution of fabric thickness is significantly
different between these contexts (Kruskal-Wallis, H = 47, p =
<0.001). This finding is consistent with the idea that larger pots
were preferentially used for processing porcine products and that these
were more commonly deposited in pits, although a three-way association
between pottery use, vessel size and depositional context cannot be
directly inferred due to the potential for co-variance.
The preparation and consumption of animals
In common with other Late Neolithic assemblages in southern
Britain, the Durrington Walls material is dominated by the remains of
pigs and, to a lesser extent, cattle. The remains of other domesticates,
for instance, dogs and sheep, as well as wild animals, make up a very
small proportion of the assemblage. The very large density of animal
bones from the site, along with the way the carcasses were treated, led
to the interpretation of the accumulated material as mainly feasting
debris (Albarella & Serjeantson 2002).
Faunal remains from the 2004-2007 excavations were analysed using a
heavily modified version of the method described by Davis (1992); see
Supplementary Online Material. For both pigs and cattle, the skeletal
element distribution is such that either live animals or complete
carcasses were brought to the site, the former being much more likely
for obvious logistical reasons. The presence of all parts of the cattle
and pig skeleton makes it unlikely that joints of meat were brought to
Durrington Walls. Parts of the body that carry more meat are well
represented across the site. In addition, the near absence of neonatal
bones of either species, despite 10mm sieving of the whole deposit,
suggests that Durrington Walls was not a producer site, i.e. it is
unlikely that the animals consumed on site were born and raised there.
Strontium isotope analyses have shown that cattle deposited during the
use of the site had a wide range of origins, with evidence for links
with the west of Britain, perhaps including Cornwall, Wales and northern
Britain (Viner et al. 2010).
Both pig and cattle bones showed evidence of butchery in the form
of cutting or chopping. Butchery marks were not observed very frequently
(c. 4% of countable specimens), but these are probably under-estimated
due to the widespread poor preservation of the bone surface. Evidence of
cooking, in the form of burnt or singed bones, was also encountered: c.
7% of countable specimens in the settlement area and c. 5% at the
Southern Circle. Burnt specimens were found in a variety of different
context types, with some individual contexts containing high levels of
heavily burnt and calcined material, much of which could not be
identified.
A number of distinctive carcass-processing patterns were observed
in the material from the 1966-1968 excavations. A common pattern of
butchery on cattle bones occurred on the mid-shaft portion of the major
long bones (humerus, radius, tibia, femur and metapodials), which were
frequently burnt and chopped, presumably to extract the bone marrow
(Albarella & Serjeantson 2002). In pigs, burning patterns suggest
the roasting of meat on the bone, evidenced by burning on specific parts
of certain elements (the distal astragalus, distal humerus, calcaneum
and proximal radius). These patterns, first observed in the earlier
study, were confirmed in the more recent analysis, indicating that they
were widespread, rather than confined to specific contexts. The
consumption of meat, then, was a major activity at the site, resulting
in the discard of animal remains on a very large scale. This is also
supported by the low frequency of gnawing marks, indicating prompt
burial, and the numerous bones found in articulation, suggestive of
primary deposition. Clearly, a considerable refuse of meat consumed on
site accumulated in a relatively short period of time.
The faunal remains, in particular those of pigs, have also provided
useful information about the seasonality of feasting activities. Based
on mandibular and maxillary tooth eruption and wear on pig teeth,
animals could have been killed on site year round, but there was a
substantial peak in the number of pigs that were killed during the late
autumn and winter (Wright et al. 2014). The evidence from tooth wear
varies between different context types; most noticeably, the pigs
deposited in midden contexts (especially those in context 593) were
consistently killed before they were one year old, while those deposited
in pits were more commonly killed during their second year. The pigs
deposited in the midden were therefore killed before reaching their
maximum meat weight, and provide the best evidence of autumn and winter
slaughtering. They represent the clearest evidence of feasting-like
consumption.
Evidence for plant foods
Evidence for the consumption of plant foods at Durrington Walls is
generally sparse. A systematic sampling strategy was employed across the
site for the recovery of charred plant material; see Supplementary
Online Material. The most abundant and widespread class of charred plant
material was hazel nutshell (Corylus avellana), but even this was found
at significant density in only two of the house floor deposits. Also at
generally low densities were the basal culm internodes of onion couch
grass (Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum). Other charred plant remains
included crab apple seeds and endocarp fragments (Malus sylvestris), a
sloe fruit stone (Prunus spinosa), indeterminate Rosaceae pericarp
fragments, a tuber of lesser celandine (Ficaria verna) and indeterminate
tuber or rhizome fragments.
The absence of any charred wheat or barley grains dated to this
period, and of quern stones, suggests that there was no processing of
cereals, a situation inferred for Britain as a whole by this stage of
the third millennium cal BC (Stevens & Fuller 2012). Yet we should
not discount the unusual status of Durrington Walls as a short-term,
consumption-dedicated gathering site when considering its paucity of
plant foods vis-a-vis animal products. We cannot be sure that finished
or semi-processed cereal products such as flour, bread or beer were not
introduced to the site. Clean, processed cereal grain may also have been
present but not preserved, as clean grain is unlikely to come into
contact with fire (Jones 2000; Jones & Rowley-Conwy 2007; Stevens
2007). Plant foods such as fruits and tubers are also less likely to
have come into contact with fire during processing and may therefore be
somewhat underrepresented.
Stable isotope evidence for diet
Unfortunately, our broader understanding of the habitual diets
during this period is hampered by the paucity of human stable isotope
values due to the rarity of non-crematory burial deposits. Just three
fragments of loose human bone and a tooth were recovered from third
millennium cal BC contexts at Durrington Walls and may not be directly
derived from the inhabitants of the site. Nevertheless, isotope analysis
of this small sample shows that these people were c. 3-5 [per thousand]
enriched in [sup.15]N compared with herbivores and pigs from the site
(Table 1), consistent with the regular consumption of ruminant milk and
porcine meat. Without knowing the isotope values of cereal grains or
other plant foods that were available, however, it is difficult to
assess the relative dietary contribution of animal and plant products,
and therefore whether the range of foods encountered at Durrington Walls
were consumed on a regular basis.
The significance of culinary and consumption practices at
Durrington Walls
On one level, consumption practices at Durrington Walls broadly
reflect the Late Neolithic economy and its technologies of food
production. On another, they derive from culinary appreciations and
preferences that are likely to have conveyed symbolic meanings, related
to perceptions of the value of foodstuffs or food combinations, and of
how these were prepared and consumed (Parker Pearson 2003; Saul et al.
2014). In broad terms, culinary practices at Durrington Walls correspond
to one pole of Goody's (1982) binary characterisation of cuisine;
class-based societies employ a differentiated 'haute cuisine'
of complex and multiple gradations in courses, dishes and vessel forms,
yet Neolithic Britain was nearer the other end of this scale in terms of
its relative lack of such category distinctions. Nevertheless, a close
analysis of food remains and associated material culture at Durrington
Walls has revealed more internal variability than might be expected.
The selection, proportions and combinations of foodstuffs at
Durrington Walls were different from what might be expected to have
constituted everyday eating in the British Neolithic. The settlement has
many characteristics of a feasting site: discard of masses of animal
bones, many of which had not been fully processed for their nutrition;
winter seasonal culling of animals, particularly pigs; and an emphasis
on animal over plant foods. The scale and nature of feasting at
Durrington Walls was, however, quite variable. The evidence from pit
deposits is similar to that of other Late Neolithic sites (Serjeantson
2006; Rowley-Conwy & Owen 2011) and consistent with small-scale
feasts in keeping with expectations for societies with undifferentiated
cuisines (Goody 1982). Many pits were dug into house floors on the
abandonment of the house, suggesting a closing ritual in which the
remains of 'meals' were buried as the house went out of use.
Pig products were the main feature of these meals, with the animals
culled in their second year, in keeping with normal patterns for meat
exploitation.
In contrast, the large numbers of animals that were promptly
disposed of in the middens that filled the space between the houses are
in keeping with larger scale, less frequent feasts, which probably
occurred in the winter. Notably, the pigs in the middens were killed at
a younger age than those deposited in other contexts, including pits,
often before reaching their maximum meat weight, which is indicative of
careful planning for overt public consumption. Compared to the pits, the
middens contained higher numbers of sherds from pots in which ruminant
products--presumably beef and cows' milk--had been cooked, the
latter suggestive of additional activities during the summer or storage
of fermented dairy products for winter feasts. There is little else to
identify feasting activities, such as exotic foodstuffs or feasting
paraphernalia, notwithstanding the larger pots and hearths. Feasting
seems to have been characterised by quantity, in this case, of meat,
rather than variety.
The two main methods of cooking, at least as evidenced by the
archaeology, were in pots and roasting. While boiling or roasting in
pots is most likely to have been undertaken on indoor hearths,
barbeque-style roasting was most likely conducted outside. A 4 x 1 m
hearth located immediately outside the midwinter solstice,
sunrise-oriented entrance of the Southern Circle (Wainwright &
Longworth 1971: fig. 12) could be one such roasting installation.
Cooking duties were probably not distributed equally throughout all
dwellings. Although some houses were associated with pottery dumps,
others were not. Within the East Entrance area, house 851 had only a
small number of sherds in its midden in contrast to neighbouring houses
547 and 1360.
The concentration of vessel sherds with dairy product residues
outside the Southern Circle raises an interesting question about why
this foodstuff might be associated with public monumental space.
Dairying had been widespread in Britain since the start of the fourth
millennium cal BC (Copley et al. 2003), so milk, butter and cheese are
unlikely to have been novelty foods. Although the extent of lactose
intolerance in Late Neolithic British populations is unknown, fresh milk
could have been perceived as a food on the margins of edibility,
consumable only by a select few, or requiring highly skilled
transformation into low-lactose yogurts and cheeses. Such careful
control is evident in the choice of smaller vessels for milk, mirroring
evidence from the earlier Neolithic in northern Germany (Saul et al.
2014) and Late Bronze Age in Britain (Copley et al. 2005). Given the
role of milk in so many cultures around the world as a symbol of purity
and as a symbolic link between spiritual and earthly nourishment (Vernon
2000: 693-94), it is perhaps no great surprise that such remains were
deposited in front of this great timber circle. Whether they constituted
offerings as opposed to merely discarded pots is uncertain, although
sherd sizes were larger on average from this part of the Southern Circle
than from the settlement area.
Wider implications
The Durrington Walls settlement, as the likely residence for the
builders of Stonehenge stage 2, offers remarkable insights into the
provision of resources for, and organisation of, Stonehenge's
construction. The evidence for feasting accords well with accounts of
feasting and voluntary labour mobilisation for megalith building in many
different parts of the world (e.g. Layard 1942; Hoskins 1986). It does
not fit expectations of a slave-based society in which labour was forced
and coerced. The fact that animals were brought on the hoof to
Durrington Walls from many different and distant parts of Britain (Viner
et al. 2010) further reinforces the notion of voluntary participation.
Although it is often tempting to think of the building of
Stonehenge as a prehistoric version of a 'free festival', of
the sort held at the monument in the 1970s-1980s, the evidence for
food-sharing and activity-zoning implies a degree of organisation
perhaps not expected. While little overt hierarchy is visible in house
size or shape, there were differences between houses in terms of their
location with regard to culinary activities, and clear differences in
consumption practices between public monumental and more private
domestic spaces. Such consumption events must have been carefully
planned and orchestrated; attention paid to ensuring that their scale
and nature was appropriate to the circumstances and the company
involved. Differences in what was cooked and served in certain sizes of
ceramic vessels also signify shared understandings of culinary and
cultural categorisation amongst a diverse group of people that probably
numbered several thousand. Food was therefore critical to maintaining
social relationships. Culinary practices enabled large-scale outdoor
sharing of feasts together with small-scale indoor household consumption
at intermediary levels too. As the integrity of households and smaller
groups was maintained at one level, the sharing of foods across the
community promoted unity amongst communities gathered from far and wide
across Britain.
doi: 10.15184/aqy.2015.110
Acknowledgements
We thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding
(AH/H000879/1); Anu Thompson (University of Liverpool) for assistance
with GC-C-IRMS; Jane Ellis (Salisbury Museum) for loaning sherds for
analysis; and Jim Gunter (Alexander Keiller Museum) for his assistance
in recording the pottery. Comments by Mark Edmonds and Hayley Saul were
also very much appreciated.
Supplementary material
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit
http://dx.doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2015.110
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2014.09.009
Received: 26 August 2014; Accepted: 13 November 2014; Revised: 2
December 2014
Oliver E. Craig (1), Lisa-Marie Shillito (1,2), Umberto Albarella
(3), Sarah Viner-Daniels (3), Ben Chan (3,4), Ros Cleal (5), Robert Ixer
(6), Mandy Jay (7), Pete Marshall (8), Ellen Simmons (3), Elizabeth
Wright (3) & Mike Parker Pearson (6)
(1) BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York,
Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK (Email: oliver.craig@york.ac.uk)
(2) School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Armstrong
Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK
(3) Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Northgate
House, West Street, Sheffield SI 4ET, UK
(4) Laboratory for Artefact Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden
University, Postbus 9514 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands
(5) Alexander Keiller Museum, High Street, Avebury, Marlborough SN8
1RF, UK
(6) Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34
Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK
(7) Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department
of Human Evolution, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
(8) Historic England, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138-142 Holborn, London,
EC1N 2ST, UK
Table 1: Stable isotope data and radiocarbon dates.
Radiocarbon
[[delta].sup.13]C [[delta].sup.15]N laboratory
Sample ID ([per thousand]) ([per thousand]) number
S-EVA 3626 -21.4 11.3 OxA-V-
2232-41
S-EVA 3636 -22.1 9.8 OxA-V-
2232-12
S-EVA 12429 -21.9 10.4 SUERC-34614
S-EVA 7249 -21.6 10.8 OxA-14800
S-EVA 3639 -21.8 9.9 OxA-V-
2232-46
S-EVA 3641 -21.9 10.4 OxA-V-
2232-47
S-EVA 8429 -21.1 9.8 Not dated
Find 1349 -21.8 11.2 OxA-21961
-23.4 [+ or -] 0.3 5.7 [+ or -] 0.6
-23.4 [+ or -] 0.5 5.4 [+ or -] 0.5
-23.3 [+ or -] 0.6 6.0 [+ or -] 0.5
-21.0 [+ or -] 0.5 6.7 [+ or -] 0.7
-21.0 5.3
-21.5 [+ or -] 0.6 6.0 [+ or -] 0.8
-24.1 6.1
-24.2 [+ or -] 0.4 5.7 [+ or -] 0.6
Calibrated
[[delta].sup.13]C date (93%
Sample ID ([per thousand]) confidence) Notes
S-EVA 3626 -21.4 2620-2470 cal Durrington Walls,
BC human bone, male
mandible, battered
and toothless from
(1034) the fill of
pit (1033).
S-EVA 3636 -22.1 2630-2470 cal Durrington Walls,
BC human bone, female
occipital? From
[641] the
artificial road
surface of rammed,
broken flint
containing animal
bones, pottery,
burnt flint and
lithic artefacts.
S-EVA 12429 -21.9 2620-2460 cal Durrington Walls,
BC human tooth root
from the buried
soil (585) that
formed above the
avenue roadway.
S-EVA 7249 -21.6 2860-2500 cal Durrington Walls,
BC human femur from
(109) the fill of
pit (178).
S-EVA 3639 -21.8 2890-2630 cal Stonehenge, skull
BC sub-adult or adult
WA 1560 from ditch
fill, [1560], C25.
S-EVA 3641 -21.9 2880-2570 cal Stonehenge, skull
BC older mature adult
or older adult,WA
2589, from ditch
fill, [2589], C28.
S-EVA 8429 -21.1 Possibly Neolithic
skull sample, from
long barrow near
Stonehenge.
Find 1349 -21.8 3360-3100 cal Amesbury 42 Long
BC Barrow, find 1349,
-23.4 [+ or -] 0.3 humerus.
Durrington Walls
cattle, average,
n = 78.
-23.4 [+ or -] 0.5 Stonehenge cattle,
average, n = 7.
-23.3 [+ or -] 0.6 West Kennet
cattle, average,
n = 20.
-21.0 [+ or -] 0.5 Durrington Walls
pigs, average,
n = 47.
-21.0 Stonehenge pig,
-21.5 [+ or -] 0.6 n = 1. West Kennet
pigs, average,
n = 67.
-24.1 Durrington Walls
sheep, n = 1.
-24.2 [+ or -] 0.4 West Kennet
caprines, n = 4.
