The Sheep Project (2): The effects of plane of nutrition, castration and the timing of first breeding in ewes on dental eruption and wear in unimproved Shetland sheep

The implication of our data is that marked intra-assemblage differences cannot be explained exclusively by changes in the management variables explored in this study. Further, as sex and castration have little effect on the timing of dental eruption and wear, but substantially delay epiphyseal fusion (Popkin et al., 2012), we support previous hypotheses that comparison of the two datasets may provide a method for investigating flock structure in past animal husbandry. Our results are of most relevance to domestic sheep assemblages from similar environments to the UK, and to the Shetland breed, but can assist zooarchaeologists worldwide in interpreting dental data.