Thorpe
Thewles Iron Age Settlement
Animals
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The most numerous of the species of livestock
kept on site was cattle which would provide beef,
milk, leather, bone, horn and manure as well
as providing traction to pull the simple plough
or ard used in the Iron Age. The actual Iron
Age species, Celtic Shorthorn, has no modern
equivalent although they resemble Dexter cattle
in size and power.
A strain of sheep called Soay was kept for its
meat and particularly for its wool, which would
have been plucked rather than shorn. The Soay
sheep has remained almost unaltered from its
Iron Age predecessor on the remote Scottish island
of St. Kilda.
The spinning of wool is attested by the presence
of a small number of spindlewhorls. Soay sheep
universally occur in two colour strains, fawn
and medium brown and it is quite feasible that
simple tartan patterns could be woven without
the use of natural dyes from berries and crushed
minerals. Odd pairs of post holes that cannot
be assigned to other structures may well have
held the upright supports of simple looms, and
an attractively decorated bone implement found
on the site may be a weaving shuttle.
Iron Age horses resembled modern Exmoor ponies
in appearance. They could have been used for
pulling ploughs and were certainly used to pull
chariots and carts. Horses are often depicted
in Iron Age art and were considered very important
by the Iron Age people. Three horse skulls were
discovered at Thorpe Thewles and two of the skulls
were buried without any other bones confirming
the importance that these animals had.
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