Dead or alive? Investigating long-distance transport of live fallow deer and their body parts in antiquity

摘要: The extent to which breeding populations of fallow deer were established in Roman Europe has been obscured by the possibility that skeletal remains species, particular Dama foot bones and antlers, traded over long distances as objects their own right. This paper sets out refine our understanding evidence for transportation living dead Iron Age Europe. To achieve this, museum archives containing purportedly early examples antler searched, with available specimens sampled carbon, nitrogen strontium isotope analyses, compared data archaeological from across Importantly, resulting values can be interpreted light new modern baseline presented here. Together these multi-isotope results provide a more critical perspective on body parts antiquity.