Unravelling social status in the first medieval military order of the Iberian Peninsula using isotope analysis.

Medieval Iberia witnessed the complex negotiation of religious, social, and economic identities, including the formation of religious orders that played a major role in border disputes and conflicts. While archival records provide insights into the compositions of these orders, there have been few direct dietary or osteoarchaeological studies to date. Here, we analysed 25 individuals discovered at the Zorita de los Canes Castle church cemetery, Guadalajara, Spain, where members of one of the first religious orders, the Order of Calatrava knights, were buried between the 12th to 15th centuries CE. Stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analyses of bone collagen reveal dietary patterns typical of the Medieval social elite, with the Bayesian R model, 'Simmr' suggesting a diet rich in poultry and marine fish in this inland population. Social comparisons and statistical analyses further support the idea that the order predominantly comprised the lower nobility and urban elite in agreement with historical sources. Our study suggests that while the cemetery primarily served the order's elite, the presence of individuals with diverse dietary patterns may indicate complexities of temporal use or wider social interaction of the medieval military order.

Morphological Differences between Sheep and Goat Calcanea Using Two-Dimensional Geometric Morphometrics.

The distinction between bones of sheep and bones of goats is a difficult issue in zooarchaeology. Several studies undertaken in the past to facilitate this task have relied upon both qualitative criteria and osteometry. Geometric morphometrics has proved to be a powerful tool to evaluate morphological differences in a rigorous and detailed manner. This study aims to analyse variations in the morphology of the calcaneum among sheep and goats based upon two-dimensional geometric morphometrics (GM). Twenty landmarks were selected on the surfaces of 79 calcanea (47 sheep and 32 goats) to calculate the principal components of shape variations among these specimens. Clear interspecific differences in the morphology of this bone were extracted. Most are located on the calcaneal tuber and neck, the sustentacular tali region, the articular surfaces of both the malleolus and the cubonavicular. Furthermore, the use of GM methods has enabled us to assess small but significant amounts of geometric variation that are difficult to measure using traditional morphometric techniques. They provide a new and useful perspective to what is already known in the published literature. Our results shed new light upon the possibility of the existence of qualitative features that may help to distinguish caprine breeds.

Pathological and sub-pathological changes in European rabbit bones: Two reference cases to be applied to the analysis of archaeological assemblages.

OBJECTIVE: To provide prevalence data for future comparative analysis of the health status of rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) accumulated in the archaeological record. MATERIALS: Two contrasting assemblages were analysed for pathological and sub-pathological changes: 1) an assemblage of domestic modern rabbit bones; and 2) a non-anthropogenic accumulation of archaeological rabbit remains. METHODS: The lesions observed macroscopically, under magnification, and radiographically in both assemblages are quantified and described. RESULTS: In the first assemblage, pathological and sub-pathological changes mostly affected the lower limb bones and primarily took two forms: diaphyseal periosteal proliferation and hypervascularised distal physes. Differential diagnosis of the periosteal proliferation suggests that pododermatitis is the most probable cause. In the second assemblage fractures were the most common lesions, but isolated examples of hypervascularised physes, periosteal proliferation, and musculo-skeletal stress markers were also identified. The pathological changes recorded is typical of a naturally-accumulated population of wild rabbits. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of pathological and sub-pathological skeletal changes in the rabbits, and thus their health status, are closely related to living conditions. This study demonstrates the value of systematically recording pathologies in rabbit bones. SIGNIFICANCE: We contribute new data to help understand rabbit interactions with humans in the past and also the environment they inhabited. LIMITATIONS: Working with modern samples frequently means only incomplete skeletons are available for study. In these cases lesion prevalence always needs to be interpreted with caution. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Paleopathological studies of rabbit remains are remarkable for their absence. Further exhaustive research in this area is advised.

Distinguishing the taphonomic signature of wolves from humans and other predators on small prey assemblages.

The study of human subsistence strategies in prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities is essential to understanding the evolution of human behaviour. An important topic of interest is the expansion of dietary breadth, resulting in the procurement of a larger number of small game species. However, to make accurate interpretations of human subsistence, the correct identification of the agents responsible for archaeofaunal assemblages is crucial, and actualistic studies that establish the taphonomic signature of the different predators are indispensable. Despite being one of the most ubiquitous carnivores in prehistoric archaeological sites, the role of wolves (Canis lupus) as agents responsible for small-prey accumulations has never been examined. The aims of this study are to analyse the taphonomic patterns left by wolves on rabbit remains and to put forward a series of criteria that can help distinguish assemblages produced by this carnivore from those accumulated by people or by other predators. Our results reveal that wolves ingest and consume the whole rabbit carcass, with the consequence that all rabbit remains accumulated by wolves come from the scats. The referential framework provided in this study will make it possible to discriminate wolves as agents of fossil rabbit accumulations.

Rabbits and hominin survival in Iberia.

High dependence on the hunting and consumption of large mammals by some hominins may have limited their survival once their preferred quarry became scarce or disappeared. Adaptation to smaller residual prey would have been essential after the many large-bodied species decreased in numbers. We focus on the use of a superabundant species, the rabbit, to demonstrate the importance of this taxon in Iberia as fundamental to predators. We show that the use of the rabbit over time has increased, and that there could have been differential consumption by Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH). Analysis of bone remains from excavations throughout Iberia show that this lagomorph was a crucial part of the diet of AMH but was relatively unutilised during the Mousterian, when Neanderthals were present. We first present changes in mammalian biomass and mean body mass of mammals over 50,000 years, to illustrate the dramatic loss of large mammalian fauna and to show how the rabbit may have contributed a consistently high proportion of the available game biomass throughout that period. Unlike the Italian Peninsula and other parts of Europe, in Iberia the rabbit has provided a food resource of great importance for predators including hominins. We suggest that hunters that could shift focus to rabbits and other smaller residual fauna, once larger-bodied species decreased in numbers, would have been able to persist. From the evidence presented here, we postulate that Neanderthals may have been less capable of prey-shifting and hence use the high-biomass prey resource provided by the rabbit, to the extent AMH did.