Dear all

thanks for the answers to the dogwhelk question. I like the idea of
hermit crabs perhaps being used for bait, especially as, in response
to Jans e-mail, many of these shells do appear to be fairly worn and
not fresh. Also most are complete, that is the apex has not been
broken off to extract the dogwhelk....How would you extract a hermit
crab? So far we have only had one fragment of mussel so it
seems unlikely they are being brought in that way.

Re. dying using dogwhelks I would be interested to know how this is
actually done. I think I had read somewhere that crushed dogwhelks
had been found on some Irish sites indicating dyeing. Would crushing
not release the dyestuff anyway? Why does the animal have to be
extracted?

Ken,
only 6 topshells have been found so far but we've only really started
digging the features. There is a huge amount of animal action going
on and so a lot of the shells and flintwork came up in the topsoil
and subsoil and so I can't even be positive that all of the shells
are actually contemporary with the site though they do seem to only
appear with the lithics and above the underlying archaeology -  we
will be investigating this further. However, there are some shells
which have come from stratified deposits. 5 of the topshells are from
either unstratified deposits or topsoil but there is one from
occupation debris within what we think is a structure and this has
been dated by AMS on charred hazlenut to 9th millenium bp. I can't be
sure about the species,....it might be Gibbula cineraria but I'm not
sure. Don't know if that helps?
If you do come across the ethno example of eating dogwhelks I would
be interested
Many thanks
nicky


> Date:          Tue, 24 Apr 2001 13:20:22 +0100
> Reply-to:      [log in to unmask]
> From:          Tony Legge <[log in to unmask]>
> Organization:  Birkbeck College
> Subject:       Re: dogwhelks
> To:            [log in to unmask]

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> Dear All,
>
> Good point about hermit crabs living in dog whelks -
> these crabs are a favourite sea angling bait for
> line fisherman and I have taken lots of good cod on
> these. Of course, we all know that an interest in
> animal bones is a thin veneer to conceal a much
> deeper interest in gastronomy. On other matters of
> traditional food, I notice that the remainder
> bookshops in UK have cheap paperback copies of two
> essential books:
>
> Dorothy Hartley "Food in England"  (London,
> MacDonald and James 1979) - one of my favourite
> books.
>
> Jack Drummond and Anne Wilbraham "The Englishman's
> food: five centuries of English diet" (London,
> Pimlico 1991)
>
> Another which is an indispensable read is the much
> more recent Alan Davidson "The Oxford Companion to
> Food"
> (Oxford, OUP 1999).
>
> I haven't yet seen the new "Cambridge World History
> of Food," but at #95 I promise to write a favourable
> review in exchange for a free copy for any journal.
>
> Tony Legge
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> --------------B9D6A50B7A649B9F0BC15895--
>
Dr Nicky Milner
Sir James Knott Research Fellow
Dept. of Archaeology
University of Newcastle
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE1 7RU
0191 222 5754 (office)