Life at the Tilery: Animal and Human Footprints on Ceramic Building Materials from Bracara Augusta, Portugal

This study provides one of the largest samples of ceramic building materials with prints that has been analyzed. These tiles were recovered from Braga and date between the 1st and 7th centuries CE. There were 152 tiles examined with 420 prints from humans, dogs, cats, sheep, and goats. All prints were measured to provide data to estimate the morphological aspects of the animals found. The most common prints were from dogs that were small and medium in size. Only a few cat prints were present, but this helps us to understand the spread of this domesticated animal. The presence of sheep and goats suggests small settlements and farms once existed near the tilery. The human prints included both bare foot and shoe prints. The age, sex, and stature of the human prints were estimated, and indicate that women and children were present in the tile drying area. The children were 1 to 10 years of age. The stature of the adult females averaged 151.2 cm, which compares favorably with stature estimates from other areas of Portugal during the Roman period. Animal prints on CBM are commonly found but rarely published. Providing this data can aid future research on the comparability of the environment and animals around different tileries in the Roman world.