Phil Piper is doing MPhil/DPhil research at York
(Archaeology Dept) on the taphonomy of small vertebrates
from rural and urban sites. This involves a study of
current taphonomic pathways (including two- and four-footed
predators). Do you know each other? Seems to be topic of
the year. My own work on fox scats found bits of larger
bones (eg frags of rabbit, sheep and bird bones) or
occasional whole small bones (phalanges etc) of birds or
isolated teeth of small mammals, but very few small
vertebrate bones. Either that's a sampling bias (ie if
there are dead sheep around, foxes may target them in
preference to nimble little brown furry squeaky things etc)
or the small vertebrate bones don't survive the digestive
tract too well (teeth being an exception). I'll be very
interested in Mark's results from the fox survey.
There are some pictures in:
Stallibrass, S. 1990. Canid damage to animal bones: two
current lines of research. pp 151-165 in Robinson, David E.
(ed.) Experimentation and reconstruction in environmental
archaeology. Symposia of the Association for Environmental
Archaeology No. 9, Roskilde, Denmark, 1988. Oxford: Oxbow
Books. ISBN 0 946897 23 9.
Sue Stalli
On Fri, 12 May 2000 09:44:10 +0100 Jacqui Mulville
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> mark have posted your message direct to zooarch. Here you
> all a futher strand in the rich tapestry of owl pellets etc.
> jacqui
>
> --- Begin Forwarded Message ---
>
> Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 18:34:19 +0100
> From: Mark Ward <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: owl pellets in an archaeological context <fwd>
> Sender: Mark Ward <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Jacqui Mulville
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Mark Ward <[log in to unmask]>
> Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> Dear Jacqui,
> I am currently working on material excavated from outside two caves in the
> Peak District where the majority of the material is from micro-fauna. I have
> not compared them to raptor digested material yet (this is where Jim
> Williams comes in) but I am working on the assumption that some of this
> material is derived from both Badger and Fox dwellings currently inside the
> caves. Smaller mustelids may also have played a role in this accumulation.
> At the moment I am processing Badger faeces collected a few weeks ago and I
> also have some from February. I plan to collect some either in July or
> August when the smaller rodents are more numerous.
> Hopefully, I will be receiving material from the National Fox Survey at
> Bristol.
> Would any of this data be useful to you?
> Regards
> Mark
>
>
> ----------------------
> Jacqui Mulville,
> EH Regional Science Advisor (E. Mids)
> Oxford University Museum,
> Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW
> Tel: 01865-272996 Fax: 01865-272970
>
>
---------------------
[log in to unmask]
Dr. Sue Stallibrass
Archaeological Science Advisor for the north-west region of English Heritage
School of Archaeology, Classics & Oriental Studies (SACOS)
University of Liverpool
Hartley Building
LIVERPOOL L69 3GS
direct telephone: +44 (0)151 794 5046 departmental FAX: +44 (0)151 794 5057
e-mail: [log in to unmask] OR [log in to unmask]
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