Hi Emma,
In a 13th century block in the town Uppsala we had a house plot that had
been abanndoned temporarily and which seems to have be used as a place for
disposal of various refuse. Among the bones where several dogs that had been
partitioned "at random" with a sharp tool, like a sword. Their body parts lay
articulated. There were also many meat-bearing bones of horses, but not
butchered in the way found among cattle bones. Horse was not eaten in the
cities during medieaval and later periods. Old horses were killed and skinned
by "outcasts" outside the towns and the bodies were left to decompose so
that certain bones could be collected later for use in handicraft. It is typical
that both horse and dog bones are found in layers that were outside the town
border. Here we find the bonesfrom the trunk and upper extremities, while the
feet bones and sometimes the mandible can be found in the house contexts.
So in this case it seems that an abanndoned plot was used in the same way
as the fields surrounding the housed areas.
The block in Uppsala was called "Kransen" and was excavated in 1978. There
is only a popular report (in swedish) by me in "Kransen. Ett medeltida kvarter i
Uppsala" (Upplands Fornminnesförenings Tidskrift, vol. 50, Uppsala 1984, Ed:
Ola Ehn & Jan Helmer Gustafsson)
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