Conclusive Evidence for Cattle Traction in Middle Neolithic Ireland: A Pivotal Element for Resource Exploitation

Abstract While cattle traction is a major technological innovation of the Neolithic period, data are still lacking on the chronology, purposes, and intensity of exploitation. This paper investigates cattle traction in the northwest Atlantic islands for which information is particularly restricted as evidence in Neolithic Britain and Ireland has been so far patchy and inconclusive. Using a suite of methods and refined criteria for traction identification, we present new and robust data on a large faunal assemblage from Kilshane, Co. Dublin that conclusively demonstrate cattle traction in the middle 4th millennium BC in Ireland. Bone pathology data combined with osteometric analysis point out specialised husbandry practices, producing large male, likely oxen, for the purpose of cattle traction. This new technology has important implications for the early agriculture in the region since it provides a key support for more extensive land management practices as well as for megalithic construction, which increased considerably in scale during this period. The access to draught animals and the exploitation of associated resources were most likely at the heart of wider changes that took place in Neolithic society in the second half of the 4th millennium BC.