Issue 62

December 2001

Contents

news

Detectorists report thousands of new finds to archaeologists

Neolithic farmhouse found in Scotland

Lost Roman town abandoned 2,000 years ago found in Kent

Roman water-lifting machinery unearthed in London

Excavating a Scottish rebel’s luxurious stronghold

In Brief

features

Citadel of the Scots
Alan Lane on recent excavations at Dunadd hillfort

Reading the land
Peter Fowler on the antiquity of the British landscape

Great sites: Meols
David Griffiths on a once-great port now lost to the sea

letters

On black and brown rats, medieval crafts and cannibalism

issues

George Lambrick on Government policy on the heritage

Peter Ellis

Regular column

books

Prehistory in the Peak by Mark Edmonds and Tim Seaborne

Shadows in the Soil by Tony Waldron

Europe’s First Farmers edited by T Douglas Price

Landscapes of Lordship by Robert Liddiard

CBA update

favourite finds

Once lost, twice excavated. Richard Brewer’s came from a museum sub-basement.

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Simon Denison

Black death

From Mr Graham Mogford

Sir: In the article on the Black Death ('Years of pestilence', October) you have an illustration of a dried rat 'found in a medieval building'. This is interesting because the body is that of a brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), rather than a plague-carrying black rat (Rattus rattus). The tail, which is clearly complete, is smaller than the head and body length, the ears are comparatively small and the snout is far too rounded for a black rat. The brown rat is reckoned to have reached this country in the 18th century, hence one of its alternative names (at least amongst Jacobites) of Hanoverian rat.

It is possible that mummified black rats - also known as roof rats - found in attics were not placed there for protection, but merely died there and became naturally desiccated.

Mixing up black and brown rats is an easy mistake to make. The zoology museum at Reading University used to have a pair of stuffed specimens which were labelled the wrong way round until I spotted it.

Yours faithfully,
Graham Mogford
Wolverhampton
14 October

From Mr Michael Ulyatt

Sir: In Tom Beaumont James's article on the Black Death, of particular interest was the section on the 'death of art', in which he highlights the devastating effect of the plague on the skills base of British craftsmen in the decades following the pandemic.

Close to where I live is a visible example of these effects, the world-famous crooked spire of St Mary's Church, Chesterfield, Derbyshire. During a recent visit to the church, which included a tour of the tower and base of the steeple, I learnt that the stone structure of the church was completed in the years leading up to the arrival of the plague but that the steeple was not constructed until afterwards. The firm opinion of local academics, archaeologists and historians is that the most likely causes of the twisting of the spire was the use of unseasoned timber by inexperienced craftsmen who were unable, through their inexperience, to provide the necessary 'wedging and pinning' needed to counteract the warping of the wood.

That inexperience is put down to the death of the time-served artisans who created the body of the church but did not survive to give us the steeple.

Yours faithfully,
Michael Ulyatt
Mansfield
15 October

Cannibals

From Mr Richard Stein

Sir: Paul Bahn (Letters, August) comments that the dead may have been 'repackaged' to enable them to be moved more easily to the desired burial place; and that cut marks on bones may reflect this, and not cannibalism.

'Repackaging' apparently existed in medieval France. The famous warrior Bertrand du Guesclin died in July 1380 after a battle near Le Puy, but he is 'buried' in four places. It was intended to bury him at his birthplace at Dinan in Brittany, but because of the heat his entrails were removed and buried in Le Puy. At Clermont-Ferrand it was decided to boil his corpse, and the 'flesh' was buried there. The King ordered that his bones be buried at St Denis; only his heart is buried at Dinan. Perhaps his bones also showed marks of 'butchery'.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Stein
University of Reading
20 September

From Dr Timothy Taylor

Sir: It is correct (Letters, August) that my article 'The Edible Dead' (June) misrepresented the position of Jim Mallory and EM Murphy in respect of Iron Age steppe cannibalism, for which I apologise. Mallory and Murphy write that the Uyuk bones do not fit the Anasazi-style signature of aggressive exo-cannibalism, with splitting for marrow and heat treatment (cooking), and show only neat cut marks that indicate muscle removal. They thus opt for funerary defleshing which they justify in relation to death in winter and the need to arrest corpse putrefaction.

But two things are against this. Firstly, Herodotus tells us that the Scythian-type peoples were embalmers, and this is demonstrated in the frozen tombs of South Siberia; thus they had no need to deflesh for the reason Mallory and Murphy give. Secondly, Herodotus says that the reverential funerary cannibalism of the Massagetae and Issedones involved the removal of meat only (krea), which was mixed with beef and lamb to make a funeral stew. This description is wholly congruent with the Uyuk evidence. Inferring reverential funerary cannibalism in this case is thus the most academically cautious approach, as it is supported by two lines of mutually independent evidence.

It is true that Herodotus says that the Androphagoi or 'Man eaters' are the 'only' people in the region who eat human flesh. But this is only an apparent contradiction with his description of the cannibalism of the Massagetae and Issedones. In fact an implicit contrast is being made between aggressive gustatory cannibalism - hunting other people for food - and the revential practices of the other two tribes.

Paul Bahn's claim that the sceptical Heidi Peter-Roecher is 'the leading specialist in this field' is simply his opinion. The central flaw in the ritual defleshing argument is that none of its supporters say what was then done with the flesh once it was removed, and ethnographic accounts are ambiguous or ambivalent on this point too.

In response to Olaf Swarbrick's letter in the same issue, the inference of tongue cutting at Gough's Cave is made by analogy with closely similar marks found in deer when the tongue is cut out. I also dispute his claim that there is 'no edible tissue' on a human skull - the cheek muscle is substantial.

Yours sincerely,
Timothy Taylor
t.f.taylor@bradford.ac.uk
31 October

We welcome letters from readers. They may be emailed to Mike Pitts the Editor at editor@britarch.ac.uk or faxed to 01904 671384. They may be edited.

CBA web:

British Archaeology

CBA Briefing

Fieldwork
Conferences
Noticeboard
Courses & lectures
CBA Network
Grants & awards

CBA homepage