Phoebe Liu
School of Biosciences
Research Student
Thesis - The Origins of Animal Traction in Britain
Full contact details
School of Biosciences
Minalloy House
10-16 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 3NJ
- Qualifications
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- 2020-2021 MSc Osteoarchaeology – The University of Sheffield
- Dissertation: Entheseal Changes in Modern Bovidae: Exploring the Potential Application to Reconstruct Activity Patterns
- 2014-2018 BSocSc (Hons) in Sociology with minor Psychology – Hong Kong Baptist University
- 2020-2021 MSc Osteoarchaeology – The University of Sheffield
- Research interests
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Supervisors - Professor Umberto Albarella & Dr Lenny Salvagno
Thesis Abstract
The exploitation of draft animals is one of the fundamental features of the social and economic transformations that affected Western Asia and Europe in the fourth millennium BC. It is well-known that the first animal used for this purpose was cattle, but the timing and placing of its earliest use as a working animal in Britain is uncertain. This project investigates multiple lines of evidence, including morphological changes on limb bones, slaughter patterns, and non-osteological indicators such as plough marks to improve our understanding of the origins of draft cattle use and the social and economic changes that such innovation brought to late prehistoric societies in Britain.