Louisa Gidney is an established specialist in the analysis of faunal remains from archaeological excavations, see list of published reports. While Louisa remains the in-house specialist for Archaeological Services, Durham University, the down-turn in the construction industry is having a deleterious knock-on effect and there is capacity to handle more work either through Durham University or on a private consultancy basis.

Through the small-holding, detailed on the Livestock page, Louisa has acquired an unrivalled reference collection of polycerate sheep and Dexter cattle skeletons. Analysis of the Dexter skeletons is forming a substantial part of Louisa’s PhD thesis “Offspring of the Aurochs”, which is comparing historical and archaeological evidence for cattle-keeping strategies.

 

Post-medieval cattle metatarsals from Alnwick	Aurochs skull from Northumberland

Examples of conference presentations may be viewed on this link  http://durham.academia.edu/LouisaGidney

Some duplicate reference skeletons are available for sale, for example:

• Brown hare, adult with all epiphyses fused. £30 plus P&P
• Woodcock, dressed bird so no wing bones beyond proximal humerus and no tarsometarsi or phalanges. £15
• Domestic Goose, lacking one tarsometatarsal and both carpometacarpals, with associated phalanges. £20 plus P&P
• Goat kid, dlp4 with column Grant TWS G, M1 TWS C, prox radius fused. Ribs & verts in very poor condition. Long bones usable for reference but fragile. Might be a good specimen for a Taphonomy practical. £25 plus P&P.
• Pig skull and mandibles, Tamworth. Dlp4 TWS B, M1 TWS A, sty fed. Maxilla has separated from frontal. £10 plus P&P.

Please note, no cattle skeletons available.