A late entry in the beaver race......but with interesting tail butchery.
Jacqui
Mulville, J, with Bramwell, D. and Harman, M. 2004 ‘The mammalian and bird bone’ In Fiskerton:
An Iron Age Timber Causeway with Iron Age and Roman Votive Offerings. Edited by N. Field and M.
Parker Pearson. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
sections of interest?
Although beavers are generally rare on Iron Age and later sites (Yalden 1999) they are recorded at
Mickelmoor Hill, Norfolk (Clark and Fell 1953) and Haddenham, Cambridgeshire (Evans and Serjeantson
1988). There are no records of beavers on Romano-British sites in the region, although there are a
number of later Saxon records, for example at Spong Hill, Norfolk (Bond 1994) and Sutton Hoo
(Bruce-Mitford 1975). I think all of these have been covered elsewhere.
The beaver humerus and ulna articulated and were found in the same context - layer 195 in Area B -
as was one of the caudal vertebrae. A second vertebra was found in Area G, which probably came from
the same individual. Both were a similar size with identical butchery, consisting of chop marks
down the lateral side of the vertebrae.
Beavers can provide food, fur and incisors for tools (Crader 1997). In addition to providing meat,
the beaver tail provides an important source of fat. Beavers store fat in their tails in winter
months and the butchery noted on the caudal vertebra may be the result of removing the tail fat.
There is, however, another possibility, since the glands that produce castoreum and other oils are
located around the base of the tail. When extracted, dried and mixed together, these oils can be
used as medicine or to make bait for other terrestrial fur species (Charles 1997) and it is possible
that the butchery of the caudal vertebra is associated with removal of these valuable oils.
Crader, D. 1997. Prehistoric use of beaver in coastal Maine (USA). Anthropozoologica 25-26,
225-236.
Charles, R. 1997. The exploitation of carnivores and other fur-bearing animals during the North
Western European late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 16, 253-277.
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