ex Structure of the Human Remains from Carsington Pasture Cave.
The skeletal parts recovered are dominated by cranial remains together with some of the larger parts of the postcranial skeleton. Smaller bones are almost entirely absent: no hand bones, only a single foot bone and very few vertebrae have been recovered. This pattern is not attributable to degradation of bone tissue, as the state of preservation of all of the human and faunal remains is excellent. A similar pattern of loss of small sized skeletal elements is seen among the faunal remains, and it is possible that the smaller skeletal elements have either fallen out of sight between the larger boulders of the cave infill or have simply not been detected during the exploration of the cave. An alternative explanation for the pattern of skeletal part representation is that bodies were defleshed and disarticulated outside the cave, or in as-yet unexplored parts of the cave system, and only parts of the skeleton were then brought into the 2nd chamber. However, some of the individuals originally must have been deposited within the cave as intact or at least partially articulated skeletons: in the excavated area below the second chamber the hip bones, sacra and lower lumbar vertebrae of two individuals were discovered in close proximity. Similarly some of the neonatal remains in the second chamber include partial skeletons with cranial and postcranial remains from the same individual.
Movement of fragments of the same individual within the cave system is demonstrated by the spatial distribution of parts of a single skull, which were separated by a distance of 3.5 m within the second chamber. In all cases the mandibles were separated from the crania, but the damage to the facial bones of the crania has prevented successful cross matching of mandibles to the upper jaws of the same individuals. A number of the human remains exhibit damage caused by medium-sized carnivores (probably foxes, dogs or wolves). Some long bones show characteristic gnawing damage to the delicate epiphyseal areas, and some skulls and mandibles have been chewed in the region of the mastoid processes and the mandibular condyles.
All remains have been inspected for cutmarks, but these features are confined to two femurs from the same adult individual. The left side femur shows multiple transverse cutmarks on all four aspects of the distal metaphysis, beginning just above the articular surfaces about 40 mm above the level of the knee joint (Figure 4). The cutmarks are up to 20 mm long and have well defined v-shaped cross sections with some parallel striations within the marks. Several of the cutmarks follow slightly divergent courses indicating the use of multiple strokes. The right side femur has a few cutmarks of similar morphology but confined to the medial and antero-medial aspects of the distal metaphysis between 10 and 20 mm above the articular surface. The location of the cutmarks is consistent with disarticulation of the body at the knee joint. It is unlikely that the aim was to remove muscle from the thigh as no cutmarks are visible at the muscle attachment regions on the proximal and midshaft areas of the femur. Cutmark evidence for defleshing and disarticulation is present at other prehistoric mortuary sites in Britain, especially during the Neolithic when human bones, which may have been treated as relics, were transported between various locations in the landscape (Edmonds, 1999).
Figure 4: Cutmarks on posterior surface of adult human femur.
The macrofauna from the cave have been studied by Josephine Paxton (1999) and a summary faunal list of the mammalian species is presented in Table 2 below. The macrofauna are dominated by domestic species, principally cattle (Bos taurus) and pig (Sus scrofa), with dog (Canis familiaris), horse (Equus caballus), sheep (Ovis aries) and goat (Capra hircus) occurring less frequently. There are a small number of bones of wild species, including red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), wild cattle (Bos primigenius), badger (Meles meles) 