I was surprised to see that Peter Andrews has identified Eagle Owl as the
predator at the site of Longstone Edge. The eagle owl has not been recorded in
the British Isles since the last glaciation, according to Harrison (History of
the Birds of Britain). Is it a Pleistocene site?
Dale Serjeantson
Quoting Umberto Albarella <[log in to unmask]>:
> Following the exchange of emails we had a few days ago on this subject I
> have
> received this email from Peter Andrews. With his permission I am
> forwarding it
> to the list as it may be of general interest.
> Cheers,
> Umberto
> Dear Umberto and Melanie
> Your emails have been forwarded to me by Poly Baker. The site of
> Longstone
> Edge is currently being written up for publication, coordinated by
> Jonathan
> Last
> of English Heritage. I have just finished working on the small mammals
> and
> was able to identify two species of owl as being responsible for large
> parts of
> the small mammal assemblage. There is no indication of scavenging by
> any
> land-based carnivore. Also it seems that the prevailing view is that
> what was
> called the excarnation platform is just a normal land surface and the
> few human
> bones found scattered on it are incidental to local earth movements.
>
> The two owl species are short eared owl and eagle owl, identified on
> the
> basis of patterns of digestion of the rodent remains. In addition of
> course
> there
> is a background scatter of mammals such as one finds in any soil, and
> these
> were not predated. No difference was found between assemblages from the
> mound
> deposits and the assemblages recovered from within the cist, and both
> seemed to
> be similar to assemblages from the nearby fissure filling and the
> subsoil,
> although I think this similarity is likely the result of later mixing
> from
> earth
> movements by earthworms.
>
> Most of the fauna is dominated by Arvicola, but strangely enough it is
> these
> that were the main prey of the short eared owl, with Microtus being only
> about
> half as abundant in these samples. In contrast, the eagle owl
> assemblage,
> which occurred in only one part of the site, had greater numbers of
> Microtus,
> although Arvicola was still abundant. These are not typical prey
> assemblages of
> either predator, but the patterns of digestion are pretty clear. I am
> doing
> some follow-up work on the age distribution and adaptations of the
> Arvicola
> sample to see if that sheds any light on why there are such great
> numbers of
> water
> vole in an upland environment (the short eared owl being essentially a
> predator of upland open areas), for this seems to be a fairly common
> phenomenon
> in
> the past.
>
> best wishes
> Peter Andrews
>
>
>
> --
> Umberto Albarella
> Dept of Archaeology
> University of Durham
> Durham DH1 3LE, UK
> tel.+44-191-3341153
> fax +44-191-3341101
> http://www.dur.ac.uk/Archaeology/staff/UA/index.htm
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
>
Dale Serjeantson
Visiting Research Fellow
School of Humanities (Archaeology)
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ
Email: [log in to unmask]
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