David Osborne

Thesis title:

Moving with the times: diet and mobility of people and their animals in Neolithic and Bronze Age Lincolnshire and the Fens

My PhD research explores residential mobility and settlement from the Middle Neolithic (c. 3000 BCE) to the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1500 BCE), focusing on the Bronze Age in Lincolnshire and the Fens. It seeks to establish whether there was a change in the mobility of people and their domesticated animals and if so, whether this relates to the lack of evidence for permanent settlement during the Middle and Late Neolithic (Whittle 1997) and the establishment of small farming settlements by the time of the Middle Bronze Age (Brück 1999). Taking a posthumanist, non-anthropocentric viewpoint allows a review of the relations and interactions between human and non-human animals and emphasises the importance of the latter in co-constituting mobility and movement in Bronze Age communities (Braidotti 2013; Crellin and Harris 2021).

To investigate mobility, I compare isotope analyses of faunal remains excavated from two sites in Lincolnshire, one on the Bronze Age fen-edge, the other further inland. Isotope analysis determines the amount of isotopes of elements such as carbon, nitrogen and sulphur that are incorporated into human and animal tissues and bones from their diet. The results can inform on components of the diet (carbon, nitrogen) and proximity to the sea (sulphur) (Lamb et al. 2023). Material for analysis comes from small samples cut from a bone or from dentine inside a tooth; incremental sampling of the dentine of cattle and sheep teeth informs on seasonal changes such as the movement to summer saltmarsh grazing on the Fens.

A complementary analysis of soil samples taken across Bronze Age ditch features near the fen-edge settlement uses X-ray Fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) to examine the chemical composition of the soil, looking for patterns of higher amounts of phosphorus derived from animal dung as evidence of the penning of animals in enclosures and their movement along droveways between the fields.

As a by-product of my research, I will support Critical Priority 5 ‘improving access to unpublished data’ and Theme PR5, ‘realising the full potential of scientific techniques’ of Historic England’s prehistory research strategy, as well as the sub-theme ‘Development of agriculturally-based settlement patterns’ in the Research Agenda and Strategy for the East Midlands (English Heritage 2010; Knight et al. 2012).

My research integrates zooarchaeology, isotope analysis, XRF and database modelling to generate a new understanding of how the human and non-human prehistoric communities of Lincolnshire and the Fens behaved and developed from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.

References

Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity Press, Cambridge.

Brück, J. (1999) What’s in a settlement? Domestic practice and residential mobility in Early Bronze Age southern England. In: Making Places in the Prehistoric World: Themes in Settlement Archaeology. Ed. by J. Brück & M. Goodman. London: UCL Press, 52–75.

Crellin, R. J. and O. J. T. Harris (2021) What difference does posthumanism make? Cambridge Archaeological Journal 31(3), 469–475. doi: 10.1017/S0959774321000159.

English Heritage (2010) Research Strategy for Prehistory: consultation draft. Tech. rep. url: https://historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/research/draft-prehistoric-strategy-pdf/ (visited on 19/08/2019).

Knight, D., B. Vyner & C. Allen, eds. (2012) East Midlands Heritage: an updated research agenda and strategy for the Historic Environment of the East Midlands. Nottingham Archaeological Monographs 6. Nottingham and York: University of Nottingham and York Archaeological Trust. url: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/east-midlands-heritage/ (visited on 17/03/2019).

Lamb, A. L., C. A Chenery, R. Madgwick and J. A. Evans (2023). Wet feet: developing sulfur isotope provenance methods to identify wetland inhabitants. Royal Society Open Science 10, 230391. doi:10.1098/rsos.230391

Whittle, A. (1997) Moving on and moving around: Neolithic settlement mobility. In: Neolithic Landscapes. Ed. by P. Topping. Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 2. Oxford: Oxbow, 15–22.

Research Area

Archaeology

Publications

Osborne, D. A. (2013) Fallow Deer in Iron Age and Roman Britain: a study of fallow deer antlers using stable isotopes. Unpublished MSc dissertation, University of Nottingham. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.812350
Miller, H., Carden, R. F., Evans, J., Lamb, A., Madgwick, R., Osborne, D., Symmons, R. and Sykes, N. (2015) Dead or alive? Investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity. Environmental Archaeology 21(3), 246–259, DOI: 10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000043
Osborne, D. (2017) Imports and isotopes: a modern baseline study for interpreting Iron Age and Roman trade in fallow deer antlers. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology 27(1): Art. 10, pp. 1–15, DOI: 10.5334/pia-482
Osborne, D. (2023) When did the cows come home? British Geological Survey blog. URL: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/when-did-the-cows-come-home/ (accessed 2023-02-23)
Osborne, D. (2023) When did the cows come home? Exploring Bronze Age animal husbandry with isotopes and X-rays. PAST: The newsletter of the Prehistoric Society 103, 12–13. URL: https://www.prehistoricsociety.org/publications/past/103 (accessed 2023-09-14)
Osborne, D. (2023) Book review: Footmarks: a journey into our restless past by Jim Leary. Folk Life: Journal of Ethnological Studies, DOI: 10.1080/04308778.2023.2251254
Osborne, D. (in preparation) 'The cow that lived': animal care and welfare in prehistoric Britain, in: Mannermaa, K., Armstrong Oma, K., Brusgaard, N. and Kirkinen, T. (eds.) Animals in Crisis: how can archaeology contribute towards solving problems in animal welfare? London:Bloomsbury.

Conferences

2013

Antlers and isotopes: assessing short-term dietary change from ¹³C and ¹⁵N stable isotope analysis of fallow deer antlers. Poster presentation, UK Archaeological Sciences Conference, 11–14 April 2013, Cardiff University.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265601004_Antlers_and_isotopes_assessing_short-term_dietary_change_from_13C_and_15N_stable_isotope_analysis_of_fallow_deer_antlers

2014

Tracking the elusive fallow deer: exploring stable isotope evidence for imports during the Iron Age and Roman periods in Britain. Paper presented at PZAF 2014 (Postgraduate Zooarchaeology Forum), Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

2018

Should I stay or should I go? Mobility and settlement in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. Paper presented at Midlands3Cities Research Festival, Birmingham.
Should I stay or should I go? Mobility and settlement in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. Paper presented at Link18 multidisciplinary conference, University of Nottingham.
Exploring mobility in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. Paper presented at 24th annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, University of Barcelona.
Exploring changes in mobility in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. Paper presented at 5th annual Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Research Students' Symposium, University of Manchester.

2019

Moving on or settling down? Exploring mobility in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. Paper presented at Classics & Archaeology departmental research conference, University of Nottingham.
Moving with the Times: Diet and mobility of people and their animals in Neolithic and Bronze Age Lincolnshire and the Fens. Poster presented at East Midlands Historic Environment Research Framework conference, University of Nottingham.
Where the Wild Things Were: placing wild animals in the British Neolithic. Paper presented at the 6th annual Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Research Students' Symposium, University of Worcester.

2021

Using the Arches platform for Heritage and Environmental Archaeology data. Paper presented at Association for Environmental Archaeology Spring conference: Open Science Practices in Environmental Archaeology.
Using the Arches platform for Heritage and Environmental Archaeology data. Paper presented at Classics & Archaeology departmental research seminar, University of Nottingham.

2022

Secrets from the soil? Tracking Bronze Age cattle and sheep using X-rays. Paper presented at Classics & Archaeology departmental research conference, University of Nottingham.
When did the cows come home? Exploring Middle Bronze Age animal husbandry at the fen-edge. Poster presented at the Bronze Age Forum conference, University of Cambridge, 21–22 November 2022. Winner of the Prehistoric Society poster prize.
When did the cows come home? Exploring Middle Bronze Age animal husbandry at the fen-edge. Paper presented at Classics & Archaeology departmental research workshop, University of Nottingham.

2023

Bronze Age animal mobilities at the fen-edge, Lincolnshire, UK. Paper presented online to the Animal History Group, 12 April 2023.
Multi-proxy exploration of Middle Bronze Age animal husbandry at the edge of the Fens, Lincolnshire, England. Paper presented at the 29th annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Queen's University, Belfast, 31 August 2023.
Bronze Age animal mobilities at the fen-edge, Lincolnshire. Paper presented at the Bronze Age Forum conference, University of Leicester, 11–12 November 2023.

2024

Animal care and welfare in Bronze Age Britain. Paper given at the 30th annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, La Sapienza University, Rome, 31 August 2024.

Public Engagement & Impact

2024

Bronze Age farming at the Lincolnshire fen-edge — people, animals and landscape. Invited talk given to the Fen-Edge Archaeology Group, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, 27 September 2024.

Other Research Interests

Stable isotopes; zooarchaeology; data analysis, statistics and visualisation; computer applications in archaeology

Memberships

Prehistoric Society: member since 2011
Association for Environmental Archaeology: member since 2012
European Association of Archaeologists: member since 2018
The Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne: member since 2022

Research grants

When Did the Cows Come Home?

Grant from the NERC Environmental Isotope Facility, British Geological Survey, for isotope analysis of cattle, sheep and pig remains from sites in Lincolnshire to explore Bronze Age animal husbandry and grazing. Project Principal Investigator: Professor Hannah O'Regan, University of Nottingham; Co-Investigators: Professor Jane Evans & Dr Angela Lamb, British Geological Survey.