The Case of the Disarticulated Donkey - Archaeology Magazine Archive


The Case of the Disarticulated Donkey	May 15, 2008
Photos courtesy of the City of St. Augustine, Florida

Can you solve the mystery of an animal burial in Florida?

In the summer of 2007, Carl D. Halbirt, St. Augustine City Archaeologist, was conducting an excavation in response to the construction of a retaining wall to alleviate sedimentation along the foundation of a house on Old Quarry Road. He uncovered in the backyard of the house, buried in a grave, the skeleton of a 17th-century donkey that had all four of its legs skillfully disarticulated at the joints.

right foreleg phalanges and hoof left foreleg phalanges and hoof left metacarpal right metacarpal right femur left radius and ulna skull right tibia left humerus right radius and ulna right humerus ribcage, right side right scapula left metatarsus left hindleg phalanges and hoof left scapula distal end, left tibia vertebrae sternum

Donkey skeleton in situ (Rollover image to identify bones.)

Scene of the burial (where the grave containing the donkey skeleton was found)

The old coquina quarries are to the east.
Click map to enlarge.

Here are the facts:

The Questions...

Who did it and what was their motive?
What were the circumstances of the animal's death?
Why was it disarticulated and then buried?

Solving the Case

Send your solution to the Case of the Disarticulated Donkey! Simply email arkyweb@archaeology.org with your answer.

We'll post the best (and maybe the worst), along with Carl D. Halbirt's own explanation.

Skeleton of an adult donkey buried in a grave dug through a Precolumbian midden at the edge of a sand dune on Anastasia Island on the outskirts of St. Augustine
Both forelimbs and rear limbs skillfully disarticulated from the torso, leaving no butchering or cut marks

Donkey cranium; note depression on top

Cut marks on femur

The four limbs placed in the grave with the torso; torso and limbs arranged in a north-south direction
The skull displays a broad, shallow depression/fracture on the top of the cranium.
The skull of the animal was bent back so that it rested on vertebral column.
Some leg bones display cut marks suggesting that the limbs may have been defleshed prior to burial, principally the metacarpals and metatarsals (the long bones just above the hoof, metacarpal on forelimb and metatarsal on rear limb). Cut marks also were evident on the left femur and left humerus.
The burial site is near the Old Quarry Road, one of the corridors leading from the historic coquina quarries on Anastasia Island to Quarry Creek, where blocks of coquina could be loaded onto river craft and floated to St. Augustine, where they were used in the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos, which occurred between 1672 and 1695.
A radiocarbon date of 1650+40 was obtained from a carpal bone taken from the left forelimb.

Additional observations:

Position of bones and cut marks suggest the animal was disarticulated and defleshed, then placed in a bundle and buried.
Teeth wear suggests an age of 15-25 years.
Historical documents suggest Indians provided the labor to mine coquina and transport it to the site of the Castillo.