 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) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes): the large dog present in the assmblage may in fact represent wolf (Canis lupus). Two skeletal elements of brown bear (Ursus arctos) have been recovered from different parts of the cave.
Table 2: Vertebrate Fauna Recovered from Carsington Pasture Cave.
The faunal remains show few signs of butchery or other processes of food preparation or secondary product utilisation. There is copious evidence of gnawing by medium sized carnivores, with splintering of long bone shafts and puncture marks on the epiphyses and other regions of fragile bone. There are also two instances of an unusual pattern of incisor "chiselling" caused by a large rodent. Among the pig remains there are several long bone elements that appear to be left and right antimeres from the same individual, suggesting that whole carcasses rather than individual skeletal elements were entering the cave system. This hypothesis is supported by the low frequency of butchery on the bones of this species: just 2 out of 139 pig bones exhibit cut marks. We infer that the pigs may have fallen into the cave through vertical fissures, or have been brought in by carnivores as partial or complete carcasses.
The microfaunal remains sampled from surface locations in the second chamber have been the subject of a preliminary study by James Williams. The microfaunal concentrations are dominated by the remains of water vole (Arvicola terrestris) and field vole (Microtus agrestis), and are likely to have accumulated from the pellets regurgitated by owls that at some time utilised the chamber for roosting or nesting.
A decorative bone pin, a fragment of worked antler and a flint flake were discovered during excavation of the floor of the second chamber in order to gain access to deeper sections of the cave system. The complete perforated bone pin (Figure 5 ), made on a split roe deer metatarsal, is 148 mm long and is 15 mm wide at the flattened proximal end, tapering distally to a finely worked point with a cylindrical cross section. The proximal end