A barrow full of cattle skulls

A bone deposit found in a round barrow overlying a rich Beaker-period burial in Northamptonshire (England) contained at least 184 domestic cattle skulls and one aurochs skull, but very few other cattle bones or bones of other animals. Most of the cattle were young adults. The relative scarcity of premolars suggests that they were deposited on the cairn some time after death. The paper discusses archaeological and ethnographic parallels for this unusual deposit.