Images: A Ton of Cattle Bones

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A Lot of Bones

A ton of cattle bones from Corinth

(Image credit: Michael MacKinnon)

Archaeologists pulled a metric ton of cattle bones from an ancient Corinth theater, perhaps representing yearly feasts in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D.

Collected Bones

Corinth cattle bones

(Image credit: Michael MacKinnon)

Trash cans full of bones collected from the Corinth theater.

Cattle Skull

A cattle skull from Corinth

(Image credit: Michael MacKinnon)

A cattle skull found in the Corinth bone deposit. Most of the bones were from cows.

Cattle Jawbones

Cattle bones from Corinth

(Image credit: Michael MacKinnon)

Cattle jawbones found in Corinth. Only about a tenth of the bones in the theater have been recovered.

Sorting Bones

Cattle bones from Corinth

(Image credit: Michael MacKinnon)

Bones from Corinth laid out for sorting and analysis.

Corinth Theater

Corinth theater

(Image credit: Michael MacKinnon)

The western section of the ruined theater where the bones were discarded and found.

Stephanie Pappas
Stephanie Pappas

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.