A possible case of hypertrophic osteopathy in osteological remains representing cattle hide processing from a Roman villa in England

Abstract

Objective: to evaluate the likelihood that pathological features noted on cattle bones indicate that the animal suffered hypertrophic osteopathy.

Materials: cattle bones, mostly from the lower extremities, representing a single individual, recovered from a Romano-British villa (4th century CE).

Methods: the remains were subject to macroscopic, low-power microscopic, radiographic and μCT study, as well as biomolecular analysis for M. tuberculosis complex and Brucella species DNA.

Results: the remains represent a single individual and show bilaterally symmetrical subperiosteal new bone formation with no micro-anatomical alteration of the underlying bone structure. aDNA analysis was negative for M. tuberculosis and Brucella, but positive for bovine mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).

Conclusions: hypertrophic osteopathy is the most likely differential diagnoses.

Significance: hypertrophic osteopathy is uncommon in bovids, and this is the first suspected case in livestock remains from an archaeological site. It demonstrates the importance of differential diagnosis in disarticulated remains through recognition of skeletal patterning.

Limitations: the diagnosis is hampered by the incomplete nature of the remains.

Suggestions for further research: given the primacy of chronic infection as a cause of hypertrophic osteopathy in the past, scanning these remains for evidence of pathogens using Next Generation Sequencing when feasible, and other biomolecular techniques may be useful.

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