IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/yenvxx/v30y2025i2p219-227.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Taphonomic Analysis and Morphotypical Characterisation of the Medieval Dog from the Castle of Santa Severa (Latium, Italy)

Author

Listed:
  • Eugenio Cerilli
  • Marco Fatucci

Abstract

During the excavations carried out in the Castle of Santa Severa between 2003 and 2010, the remains of an early Christian church were identified. Investigations inside the church exposed the skeleton of an adult dog (Canis familiaris) buried close to the tombs of two adult men. The radiocarbon dating of one of the human skeletons indicates that the burials occurred between 1380 and 1450. The skeletal elements of the dog were analysed from an anatomical, morphological, biometric, and taphonomic point of view. The aim of the analysis was to define which of the modern dog breeds is more similar to the Santa Severa individual and why the animal was so carefully buried. This dog was an adult with fairly pronounced withers height and slender proportions. The taphonomic analysis suggests that the animal had been skinned before the burial. The multivariate analysis of the biometric parameters of the skull compared to those of numerous modern canine breeds allowed hypothesising that the dog was probably similar to a Greyhound. The analysis of several coeval artistic representations may help to explain the reasons for the particular care with which this animal was buried in the Castle of Santa Severa.

Suggested Citation

  • Eugenio Cerilli & Marco Fatucci, 2025. "Taphonomic Analysis and Morphotypical Characterisation of the Medieval Dog from the Castle of Santa Severa (Latium, Italy)," Environmental Archaeology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 219-227, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:yenvxx:v:30:y:2025:i:2:p:219-227
    DOI: 10.1080/14614103.2021.1942743
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14614103.2021.1942743
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14614103.2021.1942743?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:yenvxx:v:30:y:2025:i:2:p:219-227. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/yenv .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.