Review of animal remains from the neolithic and early bronze age of southern Britain

This project is a review of the animal bone evidence from Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites in southern England. A Regional Review report, for which this database serves as an online appendix, has been written which synthesises the faunal assemblages and discusses their implications for husbandry, hunting, meat consumption and ritual activities. The synthesis is based on 205 assemblages from 117 sites of the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age and on a list of 164 'placed' and possible placed deposit

Goose husbandry in medieval England, and the problem of ageing goose bones

Abstract. In the Middle Ages geese were kept for meat, eggs and feathers. The expected age at death, the sex ratio, and presence of medullary bone when birds are raised for the different products is discussed. Historically, geese were killed at 12-16 weeks as ‘green geese ’ or were killed in the late autumn as ‘stubble geese’. A small sample of modern im-mature birds was considered to see if the immature birds found in archaeological bone as-semblages can be equated with ‘green geese’. The sample suggests that the skeleton is already almost fully mature at 16 weeks, so methods of recording currently in use do not allow the distinction between birds of 16 weeks and older birds. The goose remains from two Medieval sites in England, the city of Winchester and Eynsham Abbey, Oxfordshire, are discussed. They suggest that few geese were raised within the city or the abbey, and there is indeed historical evidence that geese were raised outside the city of Winchester. One 13th-14th century assemblage from Winchester comprises mainly carpometacarpi, and the preferred explanation is that they are from distal wings collected for the primary feathers to be used as quill pens. To carry the interpretation of goose husbandry further, we need to establish fusion stages of the bones in a larger sample of immature birds

Farming and fishing in the Outer Hebrides AD 600 to 1700: the Udal, North Uist

This account of animal husbandry, fishing and wildfowling in the Hebrides is based on a study of the animal remains excavated between 1964 and 1982 from the site of Udal North on the island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides in the west of Scotland. The settlement went out of use just as the first historic and ethnographic accounts of the region were written and the zooarchaeological evidence is used as a test of how far the agricultural and subsistence practices described were found. Some changes in husbandry and fishing took place with the advent of Viking raiders and then with Gaelo-Norse overlords, but there was a strong degree of continuity in the ways in which cattle were managed, horses were used and the scarcity of pigs as well as in fishing strategies and the exploitation of the abundant local seabird colonies. These were long-term adaptations to the unusual local geography and environment of the Outer Hebrides

Goose husbandry in Medieval England, and the problem of ageing goose bones (in special issue: Proceedings of the 4th Meeting of the ICAZ Bird Working Group Kraków, Poland, 11-15 September, 2001)

In the Middle Ages geese were kept for meat, eggs and feathers. The expected age at death, the sex ratio, and presence of medullary bone when birds are raised for the different products is discussed. Historically, geese were killed at 12-16 weeks as ‘green geese’ or were killed in the late autumn as ‘stubble geese’. A small sample of modern immature birds was considered to see if the immature birds found in archaeological bone assemblages can be equated with ‘green geese’. The sample suggests that the skeleton is already almost fully mature at 16 weeks, so methods of recording currently in use do not allow the distinction between birds of 16 weeks and older birds. The goose remains from two Medieval sites in England, the city of Winchester and Eynsham Abbey, Oxfordshire, are discussed. They suggest that few geese were raised within the city or the abbey, and there is indeed historical evidence that geese were raised outside the city of Winchester. One 13th-14th century assemblage from Winchester comprises mainly carpometacarpi, and the preferred explanation is that they are from distal wings collected for the primary feathers to be used as quill pens. To carry the interpretation of goose husbandry further, we need to establish fusion stages of the bones in a larger sample of immature birds. Key words: Goose, Anser anser, husbandry, Middle Ages, England, zooarchaeology, feathers, quills

‘Science is measurement'; ABMAP, a database of domestic animal bone measurements

A database of animal bone measurements, the Animal Bone Metrical Archive Project (ABMAP), is now available on the Web at http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/specColl/abmap. The measurements can be downloaded and imported into a spreadsheet. They are of bones of domestic animals from the Neolithic to the 19 th century AD from assemblages in England, most from southern England. An example is given of the retrieval of measurements of cattle metacarpals and their application in a scatter diagram. The database is a resource for zooarchaeologists and others concerned with research into prehistoric and early historic domestic livestock and animal husbandry. <br/

Intensification of animal husbandry in the Late Bronze Age? The contribution of sheep and pigs

Table of ContentsCharacterising the Earlier Iron Age (Colin Haselgrove and Rachel Pope); The character of Late Bronze Age settlement in southern Britain (Joanna Brück); 800 BC, The Great Divide (Stuart Needham); Llyn Fawr metalwork in Britain: a review (Brendan O'Connor); Intensification of animal husbandry in the Late Bronze Age? The contribution of sheep and pigs (Dale Serjeantson); After 'Celtic' fields: the social organisation of Iron Age agriculture (Richard Bradley and David Yates); Refiguring rights in the Early Iron Age landscapes of East Yorkshire (Melanie Giles); Pitted histories: early first millennium BC pit alignments in the central Welsh Marches (Andy Wigley); Environmental evidence from the Iron Age in north central Britain: putting archaeology in its place (Jacqueline P Huntley); Simple tools for tough tasks or tough tools for simple tasks? Analysis and experiment in Iron Age flint utilization (Jodie Humphrey); A bloodless past: the pacification of Early Iron Age Britain (Simon James); Building communities and creating identities in the first millennium BC (Niall Sharples); Deposits and doorways: patterns within the Iron Age settlement at Crick Covert Farm, Northamptonshire (Ann Woodward and Gwilym Hughes); Ritual and the roundhouse: a critique of recent ideas on the use of domestic space in later British prehistory (Rachel Pope); The character of Earlier Iron Age societies in Scotland (Ian Ralston and Patrick Ashmore); The Early Iron Age of the Peak District: re-reading the evidence (Bill Bevan); The Early to Later Iron Age transition in the Severn-Cotswolds: enclosing the household? (Tom Moore); The aesthetics of landscape on the Berkshire Downs (Chris Gosden and Gary Lock); Settlement in Kent from 1500 to 300 BC (Timothy Champion); The Atlantic West in the Early Iron Age (Jon C Henderson); English and Danish Iron Ages - a comparison through houses, burials and hoards (M L S Sørensen); Familar landscapes with unfamiliar pasts? Bronze Age barrows and Iron Age communities in the southern Netherlands (Fokke Gerritsen); The emergence of early Iron Age 'chieftains' graves' in the southern Netherlands: reconsidering transformations in burial and depositional practices (David Fontijn and Harry Fokkens); Early La Tène burial practices and social (re)constructions in the Marne-Moselle region (Marian Diepeveen-Jansen); Rethinking Earlier Iron Age settlement in the eastern Paris Basin (Colin Haselgrove); Boundaries and identity in Early Iron Age Europe (Peter S Wells)