Аннотация:This article presents an archaeozoological analysis of the collection of animal bones (dated to the 10th — 11th centuries), unearthed during excavations of homestead “Zh” at the Troitsky XIII excavation site. The majority of bones were “kitchen leftovers”, which have a tendency to accumulate in the cultural layer when meat is part of the local inhabitants’ diet. There was no significant osteological difference discovered between the “kitchen leftover” bones of homestead “Zh” and those found in corresponding cultural layers throughout medieval Novgorod, as well as other Ancient Russian cities of the 10th — 13th centuries (Antipina, 2005).
Next, the proportion of meat in the diet of the inhabitants of homestead “Zh” was also quite standard for the diet of the population living in Ancient Russian cities. The most popular meat was beef, then pork, while mutton and goat meat tied for third place. The analysis of the animal bones yielded quite interesting results about how the butchered animals were dressed: the majority of the bones were from the “front quarter” of the animal (ribs, front limbs), while hindquarter cuts were considerably fewer in number. Although there was a slight rise in the number of pig bones from the end of the 10th century to the first half of the 11th century, there was an overall decrease in the percentage of pig bones as part of the total number of animal bones. However, there was a sharp increase in the number of pig ribs found, which indicates the popularity of dishes cooked from meat from the “middle” part of the pig carcass — the ribs and loins.
Lastly, the osteological analysis found an insignificant percentage of farm animal bones with pathologies. This indicates that the inhabitants of homestead “Zh” took good care of their livestock. Most of the pathologies identified were limited to inflammation of the teeth and jaws, which shows that the animals were mostly likely fed low quality grain. Overall, the analysis of this collection of animal bones, excavated from the cultural layer of homestead “Zh” dated to the 930s — 1050s, found nothing unusual that would stand out among other analyses of osteological material from medieval Novgorod.