Rural Life, Roman Ways? Examination of Late Iron Age to Late Romano-British Burial Practice and Mobility at Dog Hole Cave, Cumbria

ABSTRACTThe scarcity of Romano-British human remains from north-west England has hindered understanding of burial practice in this region. Here, we report on the excavation of human and non-human animal remains1 and material culture from Dog Hole Cave, Haverbrack. Foetal and neonatal infants had been interred alongside a horse burial and puppies, lambs, calves and piglets in the very latest Iron Age to early Romano-British period, while the mid- to late Roman period is characterised by burials of older individuals with copper-alloy jewellery and beads. This material culture is more characteristic of urban sites, while isotope analysis indicates that the later individuals were largely from the local area. We discuss these results in terms of burial ritual in Cumbria and rural acculturation. Supplementary material is available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X20000136), and contains further information about the site and excavations, small finds, zooarchaeology, human osteology, site taphonomy, the palaeoenvironment, isotope methods and analysis, and finds listed in Benson and Bland 1963.

Conclusion

The study of our long-term relationships with dogs faces many theoretical and methodological challenges. Recent changes in social sciences provide profound new insights on how dogs and humans share their lives. Animals are no longer mere background in stories of human history. Rather, dogs and other animals are critical elements in the assemblages of things interacting to shape our shared experiences and long-term histories. In turn, developments in biological sciences now push us to go beyond analyses of canid remains simply for the purposes of taxonomic identification. Borrowing methods from human osteology and palaeontology, zooarchaeology is increasingly better positioned to explore details of dogs’ lives.