ABSTRACT
Recurrent outbreaks of disease among livestock causing mass mortalities, particularly of domestic bovine cattle, are documented in a range of historical sources from Europe covering the period AD 750–1300. Lacking the primary evidence of remains from multiple carcases to indicate a mass mortality episode, there is no widespread understanding and analysis of the secondary evidence for such outbreaks in terms of changes in patterns of livestock exploitation and land management. The prime means of containing infection was slaughter and burial of both infected and contact animals, sponsored by government bodies at both the local and national level. Sykes’ study of the zooarchaeological impact of the Norman Conquest acknowledges that there does appear to be an inverse correlation between increased famine years and decline in cattle withers heights and that war and pillage would have impacted on cattle populations, resulting in cattle as small as those typical of the Iron Age.
