Dear Stephanie,
many thanks for this useful summary. Since you mention the work that Tessa
Pirnie and I have done I thought I would take the opportunity to clarify that,
at the moment, this is just a database that lists records from many different
sites. On purpose, this is not 'sanitised', but simply records what has been
reported without making any critical judgement. For a more critical evalutaion
of the findings you must wait for the book associated with the database which
is now near to completion, thanks to English Heritage funding. It is therefore
important to bear in mind that our data do not 'demonstrate' the presence of
rabbit between Mesolithic and Anglo-Saxon times in Britain but simply indicate
that the bones of this species (notoriously prone to intrusion) have been
reported at sites of these periods.
With best wishes,
Umberto
--
Umberto Albarella
Department of Archaeology
University of Sheffield
Northgate House
West Street
Sheffield S1 4ET
United Kingdom
Telephone: (+) 44 (0) 114 22 22 943
Fax: (+) 44 (0) 114 27 22 563
http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/albarella.html
For Archaeologists for Global Justice (AGJ) see:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/global-justice.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned
and the last fish been caught we will realise we cannot eat money"
Quoting Stephanie Grigsby <[log in to unmask]>:
> For those who enquired about the rabbit and ferret info here is a very, very
> brief summary….
>
> All of the information I have been able to gather is that the rabbit was an
> indigenous species in Britain prior to the last ice age however they became
> extinct. Regarding their re-introduction there appears to be a controversy
> – while it is implied that they were unsuccessfully introduced by the
> Romans and then thrived following the Norman Conquest (Williamson 2006) there
> is some evidence to the contrary.
>
> Albarella and Pirnie (2008) list sites from earlier periods which demonstrate
> the presence of rabbits in Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age,
> Roman, Anglo Saxon sites through to the Medieval sites reviewed.
> Recent work by Sykes and Curl (forthcoming publication) raise issues about
> the integrity of the finds from many sites but also discuss recent evidence
> of butchered rabbit bones discovered in Lynford, Norfolk from an undisturbed
> pit which contained pottery dating from the mid to late Iron Age.
>
> As you know ferrets are domesticated polecats therefore I believe that their
> remains would be difficult to distinguish and evidence of polecats/ferrets
> have been identified throughout the Iron Age in Hambleton’s (2009) review
> and from the Roman to Medieval periods by Albarella and Pirnie (2008).
>
>
> References
> Albarella, U. and Pirnie, T., 2008. A review of animal bone evidence from
> central England.
> Hambleton, E., 2009 A review of animal bone evidence from Southern England.
> Williamson, T., 2006. The archaeology of rabbit warrens. Bucks : Shire
> Publications Ltd.
>
> Hope this helps
> Steph
>
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