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Annals and Magazine of NaturalHistory: Series 13Publication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tnah19

A Roman cat from Latimervilla, CheshamKeith Branigan a & Judith E. King ba Department of Archaeology , University ofBirminghamb British Museum (Natural History)Published online: 03 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Keith Branigan & Judith E. King (1965) A Roman cat from Latimervilla, Chesham, Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 13, 8:92, 461-463, DOI:10.1080/00222936508651599

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00222936508651599

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A ROMAN CAT FROM LATIMER VILLA, CHESHAM.

By KEITH BRANIGAlV,

University of Birmingham (Department of Archaeology) and

JUDITH E. KdNG, British Museum (Natural History).

[Plate xII]

THE remains at a datable level of a Roman cat are a rare occurrence and to find these almost complete and in a good state of preservation is even rarer. The skeletal remains described below are therefore of interest and value to zoologists and archaeologists alike.

The Romano-British villa in which they were found stands on the south-western slopes of the Chess Valley in the Chiltern Hills at Latimer, about two miles from Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Settlement began in the early second century A.D. and continued until the end of the fourth century. The main villa building, of which the plan is not yet fully recovered, was built c. 170 A.D. and saw two rebuilding phases. I t was during the last of these that the cat was buried, in the corridor.

Before the tessellated floor was laid, a 6 in. build-up of pebbles was put down. The cat must have died, or been killed, whilst this operation was in progress, for it was buried in this material. I ts head was about five inches lower than its tail, as if it had been thrown in rather than properly buried.

Safely sealed by the tessellated floor the animal may be dated with reasonable accuracy. The sherds found in the pebble make-up along with the cat were as follows:

(1) Base of colour-coated ware with metallic surface. Late 3rd-4th. (2) Two rim sherds of a brown food dish. Late 3rd-early 4th. (3) Nine sherds of white fabric, black slipped with rouletted decoration.

Late 3rd-early 4th. (4) Rim sherds of hard white fabric, from an open bowl, decorated with

applied red clay on outside of rim. Early 4th. (5) Ten body sherds of grey and black fabrics, undatable.

The laying of the floor may therefore be dated to the early 4th century for which a round figure of c. 325 A.D. will suffice.

The skeletal remains of the Roman eat consist of a very fragmentary skull, the lower jaw, an Mmost complete set of vertebrm from the atlas up to and including the first sacral vertebra (C7, Th 12, L7, S1) lacking possibly only one thoracic vertebra; a number of fragmentary ribs, right and left scapulse, humeri, radii, ulnse, and innominate bones, a right femur and several metapodial and phalangeal bones. The fragmentary skull has been repaired so tha t a reasonably accurate estimate of the condylobasal length can be made (75 ram).

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462 K. Branigan & J . E. King : a Roman eat from Cheshani

T A B L E OF MEASUREMENTS

t" elis silvestris 1953.6.11.1 1953.8.5.1 1953.8.5.2 Miller (1912), range of 20 animals

Fel ls catus 1936.2.5.20 1869.12.22.1 1952.10.20.4 1958.3.4.11 feral 1952.10.20.7 1952.10.20.6

127.n. 1846.2.18.8

C.8 Manx C.6 :Black domestic C. 15 Polydactyle

Miller (1912), range of 20 animals

Lat imer R o m a n cat

Lat imer R o m a n Cat Condylobasal length

Lower jaw length Humerus length

Length upper carnassial

11.7 10.9 10.8

Uppe r carnassial + p m 3

18.9 17.7 15.4

16.6-20.0

Length lower caxnemsial

8.6 8'3 8.2

7.8-10.0

10"3 16'6 10"7 17-6 11"2 17'5 11'8 18-7 10"8 17"1 11"3 18"3

9"7 16"1 11"9 19"3 11"0 17"6 11"9 19"3 11"3 17'9

11"7

75 ram. (est.)

55 ram. 87 ram.

7-7 7'9 7'9 9"2 7"6 8"3 7"3 8-7 8'6 9"3 8"4

15.0-17.8 6.6-8.6 18.9 9-4

All measurements in millimetres.

Although from an animal that had its complete set of permanent teeth fully erupted, the skeleton is still from an obviously young animal. The component parts of the innominate bones appear to have only recently fused, the femur is lacking both its epiphyses, as are the radii and ulnse, while the humeri have the proximal epiphyses unfused and the distal ones fused to the shaft. The only definite estimate that can be made of the age of the animal is from the teeth, which, according to the table in Silver (1963) are all erupted by about 6½ months, and it is not thought tha t the animal can have been very much older than this.

Estimates of the size of the animal are hampered by the fact tha t it was not full grown, and again it is the permanent teeth that have to be used. The table gives tooth measurements of wild and domestic cats in the British Museum collections, and also the range of measurements for 20 wild and 20 domestic eats as given by Miller (1912). Miller uses these measurements to distinguish between wild and domestic cats, but as can be seen from the table, the tooth measurements are not conclusive, as some of the domestic cats are well within the range of those of the wild cats. The tooth measurements therefore are no help in deciding whether

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K. Bran igan & J . E. King : a R o m a n ca t f rom Chesham 463

the presen t R o m a n ca t was wild or domest ic . T h e y do show however t h a t the an imal possessed big teeth.

Measurements of an i m m a t u r e skeleton are of l imited use for compara - t ive purposes, bu t a visual compar ison of the R o m a n skeleton wi th cat skeletons in the m u s e u m collection shows t h a t the R o m a n bones arc large when their u n d o u b t e d y o u t h is t aken into consideration.

Zeuner (1963) ment ions remains of R o m a n cats t h a t have been found a t Silchester, Durs ley and Lull ingstone, and p a r t s of a k i t ten skeleton, including a mand ibu l a r r amus with milk t ee th in posit ion are recorded f rom Caerwent, Monmouthshi re , (Hudd, 1899), b u t it has not been possible to find any measu remen t s of these animals for compara t ive purposes . N o detai ls are recorded of the six cats identified a t H a m b l e d e n villa, a l though the excava to r s were of the opinion t h a t t hey represented b o t h wild and domest ic examples . I t is ve ry l ikely however, f rom the domest ic s i tuat ions in which they were found, t h a t all these R o m a n cats were domest ic animals. This seems to be general ly accepted, and the presence of footpr in ts on a tile a t Silchcster is also suggest ive of a domes t ic animal . The present skeleton is too young to give ana tomica l evidence, and a l though the t ee th are ve ry large, t h e y are no t too large to be f rom a domest ic animal. I t is mos t likely therc ibre t h a t the L a t i m e r skele ton is f rom a r a the r large, b u t young, domest ic cat .

REFERENCES.

HUDD, A.E. 1899. Notes on the animal and other remains found. In Martin, A. T. and Ashby, T. Excavations at Caerwent, Monmouthshire, on the site of th~ Roman city of Venta Silurum, in 1899 and 1900. Archaeologia, London 57 (2), 295-316.

M~LLER, G.S. 1912. Catalogue of the Mammals of Western Europe. British Museum (:Natural History).

NEWWON, E .T . 1921. Bones other than Human--Appendix I I I in Cocks, A. H. A Romano-British homestead in the Hambleden Valley, :Bucks. Archaeolegia, London 71, 141-198.

SILVER, I .A. 1963. The ageing of domestic animals. I n Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E Science in Archaeology. Thames and Hudson, London.

ZE~r~ER, F.E. 1963. A History of Domesticated Animals. Hutchinson, London.

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Bn.~X(~AN & KIN(~ Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. Ser. 13. Vol. V I I I . P1. X I I

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