Phoebe Liu

School of Biosciences

Research Student

Thesis - The Origins of Animal Traction in Britain

Liu
Profile picture of Liu
wcliu1@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Phoebe Liu
School of Biosciences
Minalloy House
10-16 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 3NJ
Qualifications
  • 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
Research interests

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.