Dear All,
Emily Murray and I have recently been working on the animal bones from
a medieval site in eastern England, which, in one of the phases, we
assume indicates a mid to high status diet. One of the typical characters
of this assemblage is the high frequecny of hare bones. We would like to
know the following:
has anybody analysed medieval assemblages with high proprotions
of hare bones, and, if so, how have they been interpreted?
are you aware of animal bone assemblages interpreted as deriving
from people of intermediate status (in order words wealthier than
ordinary people, but not as wealthy as the higher aristocracy). This
question mainly applies to sites outside Engalnd, as we are
reasonably familiar with the literature in this country.
thereseems to be some inconsistency in the historical literature
about the relative value of hares and rabbits, in other words which
of the two was regarded as a more prized meat? Any comments,
thoughts or references on this would be very welcome.
With many thanks in advance,
Emily and Umberto
Umberto Albarella
Department of Ancient History and Archaeology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham B15 2TT
U.K.
tel. +44/121/4147386
fax. +44/121/4145516
email [log in to unmask]
http://www.bham.ac.uk/BZL
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