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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/