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Annelise Binois présente au colloque "Zoöarcheologie en biogenetica: “ Hoe zwijgende bronnen spreken", organisé par Dr. Rob Back (Veterinair Historisch Genootschap (Association néerlandais d'histoire de la médecine vétérinaire) la communication suivante :To cut a long tail short… The gelding and docking of lambs in Europe : a confrontation of archaeological and historical sources.The castration of male lambs and the tail-docking of female lambs are routine surgeries, performed almost systematically in current European sheep farms. This paper proposes to explore the antiquity and history of such practices through an original confrontation of archaeological and historical sources.Indeed, if the gelding of lambs seems well attested in texts from the Roman era onwards, its actual practical application is very difficult to demonstrate on archaeological artefacts and evidence of it remains controversial. We will present here archaeological sheep remains dated to the 17th or 18th century from Achères, France, and show that a targeted comparison of the sex and age data obtained for each animal may substantiate evidence of historically documented practices. Tail-docking is on the contrary very rarely documented prior to the modern period, whether in iconographical or textual sources. The example of the sheep-burial of Teteghem (France, 12th-13th century) will however demonstrate that this practice could have been common in some medieval flocks.My presentation will also cast a historical light on the motives, the usefulness and the practical procedures of these routine surgical interventions in medieval times.Pour des infos sur la journée