This report presents the data from excavations carried out ahead of and during redevelopment of a... more This report presents the data from excavations carried out ahead of and during redevelopment of an area around Woolmonger Street between 1994 and 1997. The fieldwork and the current report were funded by Wimpey Commercial Property Ltd, in discharge of a section 106 planning agreement. The extensive fieldwork was carried out following a programme of desk-based assessment and on-site evaluation, which gave rise to a tripartite arrangement of some pre-emptive archaeological record some intensive watching-brief recording and a strategy for partial preservation in-situ. The present report draws upon all of the evidence and has taken account of published and unpublished data from previous excavations on the site since 1981 which offer information on areas and levels now preserved below the latest redevelopment. The data produced evidence for occupation from the early-middle Saxon period through the late Saxon, medieval and post-medieval periods. There is documentary evidence to corroborat...
Evaluation of c.3 hectares of land in Daventry town centre in July 1994 identified widespread bur... more Evaluation of c.3 hectares of land in Daventry town centre in July 1994 identified widespread buried deposits of both Medieval and potentially early-middle Saxon date adjacent to St. John's Square, Daventry. Subsequent investigation has shown that the immediate area was occupied in the 6th century AD and that after a period of abandonment was reoccupied in the 10th century. Occupation continued with changes of emphasis and layout until the present day although it waned from the 14th century. In the 6th century the site, divided by a large east-west aligned ditch, was used for dumping rubbish from a nearby settlement which probably lay just to the south on higher ground. In the late Saxon period, occupation comprised a ditched enclosure around at least one timber building. Nearby were north-south aligned ditches which may represent a fluid boundary. Re-planned in the 12th century, occupation shifted to the foot of the natural slope, the north edge of the site, where a 3-bay build...
Previous synthesis of zooarchaeological remains from English medieval sites has shown that marine... more Previous synthesis of zooarchaeological remains from English medieval sites has shown that marine fish consumption increased, from a very low baseline, around ad 1000, a phenomenon dubbed the fish event horizon (FEH) by Barrett et al. (2004a). This change appears initially to have been linked primarily to urban sites, with widespread marine fish consumption at inland rural settlements argued to be a slightly later development (Barrett et al. 2004b; but see also Chapter 17 regarding near-coastal elite settlements). That early towns and cities led the way in the expansion of marine resource use is perhaps unsurprising, given that urban settlements almost by de nition involve a concentration of food consumers rather than producers and hence require a signi cant hinterland to meet demand. Turning to marine resources is one way to expand this resource base.
Background Fishing is probably one of the oldest economic activities in the history of humankind.... more Background Fishing is probably one of the oldest economic activities in the history of humankind. Lakes, rivers and streams in Europe are important elements in the European landscape with a rich diversity of fish and other aquatic organisms. Artisanal fisheries have therefore been of great importance for the provision of food, but also animal feed, medicine, fertilizer and other needs. These fishermen had a deep knowledge about the waterscape and its biota. However, ethnoichthyology remains a small topic within contemporary ethnobiology in Europe. Our focus lies within northern Europe in the late medieval to modern period, but encompasses the wider area with some reference to earlier periods where informative. Method We have reviewed a large amount of literature mainly on the relationship between man and fish in freshwaters from late medieval times (defined here as the fifteenth century) until the early twenty-first century. The main focus is on freshwater (including anadromous and ...
Background Many freshwater fish species that were earlier appreciated by consumers have disappear... more Background Many freshwater fish species that were earlier appreciated by consumers have disappeared in the central, north and west European foodways. Although they were regarded as healthy and tasty, commercially captured marine species and highly processed products have nowadays replaced these fishes. The global transformations of the food system contribute to the erosion of many local foodstuffs. Habitual tastes disappear. Methods The article is based on a vast amount of scattered original data found in sources such as in local ethnographical studies, fishing reports, topographic literature, zoological literature, archaeological fish reports, and cookery books Results and discussion This article discusses how Eurasian ruffe, Gymnocephalus cernua (L., 1758), once was used, and the reason for its disappearance, as foodstuff in some parts of Europe. Actually, it is a fish with potential for a revival as fine food. The authors discuss the chances of its rediscovery as a foodstuff, whi...
This report presents the data from excavations carried out ahead of and during redevelopment of a... more This report presents the data from excavations carried out ahead of and during redevelopment of an area around Woolmonger Street between 1994 and 1997. The fieldwork and the current report were funded by Wimpey Commercial Property Ltd, in discharge of a section 106 planning agreement. The extensive fieldwork was carried out following a programme of desk-based assessment and on-site evaluation, which gave rise to a tripartite arrangement of some pre-emptive archaeological record some intensive watching-brief recording and a strategy for partial preservation in-situ. The present report draws upon all of the evidence and has taken account of published and unpublished data from previous excavations on the site since 1981 which offer information on areas and levels now preserved below the latest redevelopment. The data produced evidence for occupation from the early-middle Saxon period through the late Saxon, medieval and post-medieval periods. There is documentary evidence to corroborat...
Evaluation of c.3 hectares of land in Daventry town centre in July 1994 identified widespread bur... more Evaluation of c.3 hectares of land in Daventry town centre in July 1994 identified widespread buried deposits of both Medieval and potentially early-middle Saxon date adjacent to St. John's Square, Daventry. Subsequent investigation has shown that the immediate area was occupied in the 6th century AD and that after a period of abandonment was reoccupied in the 10th century. Occupation continued with changes of emphasis and layout until the present day although it waned from the 14th century. In the 6th century the site, divided by a large east-west aligned ditch, was used for dumping rubbish from a nearby settlement which probably lay just to the south on higher ground. In the late Saxon period, occupation comprised a ditched enclosure around at least one timber building. Nearby were north-south aligned ditches which may represent a fluid boundary. Re-planned in the 12th century, occupation shifted to the foot of the natural slope, the north edge of the site, where a 3-bay build...
Previous synthesis of zooarchaeological remains from English medieval sites has shown that marine... more Previous synthesis of zooarchaeological remains from English medieval sites has shown that marine fish consumption increased, from a very low baseline, around ad 1000, a phenomenon dubbed the fish event horizon (FEH) by Barrett et al. (2004a). This change appears initially to have been linked primarily to urban sites, with widespread marine fish consumption at inland rural settlements argued to be a slightly later development (Barrett et al. 2004b; but see also Chapter 17 regarding near-coastal elite settlements). That early towns and cities led the way in the expansion of marine resource use is perhaps unsurprising, given that urban settlements almost by de nition involve a concentration of food consumers rather than producers and hence require a signi cant hinterland to meet demand. Turning to marine resources is one way to expand this resource base.
Background Fishing is probably one of the oldest economic activities in the history of humankind.... more Background Fishing is probably one of the oldest economic activities in the history of humankind. Lakes, rivers and streams in Europe are important elements in the European landscape with a rich diversity of fish and other aquatic organisms. Artisanal fisheries have therefore been of great importance for the provision of food, but also animal feed, medicine, fertilizer and other needs. These fishermen had a deep knowledge about the waterscape and its biota. However, ethnoichthyology remains a small topic within contemporary ethnobiology in Europe. Our focus lies within northern Europe in the late medieval to modern period, but encompasses the wider area with some reference to earlier periods where informative. Method We have reviewed a large amount of literature mainly on the relationship between man and fish in freshwaters from late medieval times (defined here as the fifteenth century) until the early twenty-first century. The main focus is on freshwater (including anadromous and ...
Background Many freshwater fish species that were earlier appreciated by consumers have disappear... more Background Many freshwater fish species that were earlier appreciated by consumers have disappeared in the central, north and west European foodways. Although they were regarded as healthy and tasty, commercially captured marine species and highly processed products have nowadays replaced these fishes. The global transformations of the food system contribute to the erosion of many local foodstuffs. Habitual tastes disappear. Methods The article is based on a vast amount of scattered original data found in sources such as in local ethnographical studies, fishing reports, topographic literature, zoological literature, archaeological fish reports, and cookery books Results and discussion This article discusses how Eurasian ruffe, Gymnocephalus cernua (L., 1758), once was used, and the reason for its disappearance, as foodstuff in some parts of Europe. Actually, it is a fish with potential for a revival as fine food. The authors discuss the chances of its rediscovery as a foodstuff, whi...
Cod and herring. The Archaeology and History of Medieval Sea Fishing, 2016
Previous synthesis of zooarchaeological remains from English medieval sites has shown that marine... more Previous synthesis of zooarchaeological remains from English medieval sites has shown that marine fish consumption increased, from a very low baseline, around ad 1000, a phenomenon dubbed the sh event horizon (FEH) by Barrett et al. (2004a). This change appears initially to have been linked primarily to urban sites, with widespread marine sh consumption at inland rural settlements argued to be a slightly later development (Barrett et al. 2004b; but see also Chapter 17 regarding near-coastal elite settlements). That early towns and cities led the way in the expansion of marine resource use is perhaps unsurprising, given that urban settlements almost by de nition involve a concentration of food consumers rather than producers and hence require a signi cant hinterland to meet demand. Turning to marine resources is one way to expand this resource base. Stable isotope provenancing has shown that this FEH initially involved relatively locally caught sh, with imports from northern waters only becoming common during the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries (Barrett et al. 2011). To the extent that the shift towards marine resources was driven by demand from urban populations, one might also expect expanding cities to have been at the forefront of the eventual development of long-distance trade in sh. Apart from the increasing strain that must have been placed on local hinterlands (both terrestrial and marine) by growing cities such as London – whose population is estimated to have climbed from around 20,000 in the twelfth century to around 80,000 in the thirteenth century (Campbell et al. 1993, 24) – trade functions were in any case central to medieval urbanism (Astill 2009; Biddle 1976). Indeed, in this context it is worth noting that signi cant consumption of herring (Clupea harengus) seems to have pre-dated the FEH, speci cally at early medieval proto-urban trading centres (Barrett et al. 2004b; see also Chapters 14–15). London is thus a good case study through which to explore the onset and development of long-distance trade in sh to England, using cod (Gadus morhua) as our example. Apart from being one of the largest medieval cities in the kingdom, its historic core has also been subject to intensive, high-quality excavation over the past 40 years. Moreover, stable isotope provenancing results suggest that London came to rely on imported cod relatively early, within its southern North Sea context (Barrett et al. 2011), although sample size – and hence representativeness – is ultimately restricted by the practicalities of destructive laboratory analysis. This chapter presents the results of a meta-analysis of cod remains from 95 sites across London, aimed at detecting changes over time in the contribution of imports, complementing and placing in context the isotopic results. It builds on an earlier publication (Orton et al. 2014), adding assessments of changes in sh preservation techniques and of the spatial distribution of the bone nds. Late and post- medieval trends are also given more attention in the present chapter than in the previous study.
The growth of medieval cities in Northern Europe placed new demands on food supply, and led to th... more The growth of medieval cities in Northern Europe placed new demands on food supply, and led to the import of fish from increasingly distant fishing grounds. Quantitative analysis of cod remains from London provides revealing insight into the changing patterns of supply that can be related to known historical events and circumstances. In particular it identifies a marked increase in imported cod from the thirteenth century AD. That trend continued into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, after a short downturn, perhaps attributable to the impact of the Black Death, in the mid fourteenth century. The detailed pattern of fluctuating abundance illustrates the potential of archaeological information that is now available from the high-quality urban excavations conducted in London and similar centres during recent decades. Supplementary material is published online
The spatial distribution of the European freshwater eel (Anguilla anguilla) was very different in... more The spatial distribution of the European freshwater eel (Anguilla anguilla) was very different in historic and prehistoric times in comparison to the present. A database of the spatial and temporal distribution of eel remains in archaeological and palaeontological sites is presented and used to assess the spatial distribution of populations from the height of the last glacial maximum. The results show that the eel was absent from northern Europe until about 11 000 years ago. The reason was probably a southerly displacement of the Gulf Stream carrying the larval migration from the Sargasso Sea. However, additional factors preventing eel populations in northern Europe may have also been the colder temperatures in the Arctic tundra landscape that existed at the time and the extreme distance to the European Atlantic coast along the Channel River. The archaeological record shows that eels were absent from the Baltic Sea until about 6700 cal BC, but there is some indication of an earlier presence during the Yoldia Sea stage at the beginning of the Holocene. Only in southern Europe south of the Gironde river basin were eel populations maintained through the last glaciation. The species may have survived the last glaciation in a relatively restricted area in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast of western Europe. Published palaeontological and genetic information gives important insights into climatic, geologic, and tectonic events on longer time scales. The oldest subfossil remains from Pleistocene sediments in northern Europe are approaching the age of the estimated genetic divergence of the European and American eel populations, and hence the species identity of the oldest subfossil remains may be ambiguous.
The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented... more The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented. However , the antiquity of their intensive exploitation has not been established. Systematic catch statistics are only available for ca.100 years, but large-scale fishing industries existed in medieval Europe and the expansion of cod fishing from the fourteenth century (first in Iceland, then in Newfoundland) played an important role in the European colonization of the Northwest Atlantic. History has demonstrated the scale of these late medieval and post-medieval fisheries, but only archaeology can illuminate earlier practices. Zooarchaeological evidence shows that the clearest changes in marine fishing in England between AD 600 and 1600 occurred rapidly around AD 1000 and involved large increases in catches of herring and cod. Surprisingly, this revolution predated the documented post-medieval expansion of England's sea fisheries and coincided with the Medieval Warm Period—when natural herring and cod productivity was probably low in the North Sea. This counterintuitive discovery can be explained by the concurrent rise of urbanism and human impacts on freshwater ecosystems. The search for 'pristine' baselines regarding marine ecosystems will thus need to employ medieval palaeoecological proxies in addition to recent fisheries data and early modern historical records.
When did the market economy come to Europe? Fish might seem an unlikely commodity to throw light ... more When did the market economy come to Europe? Fish might seem an unlikely commodity to throw light on the matter, but the authors use fish bones from English sites to offer a vivid account of the rise and rise of the market as a factor in European development from the late tenth century.
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Papers by Alison Locker
Stable isotope provenancing has shown that this FEH initially involved relatively locally caught sh, with imports from northern waters only becoming common during the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries (Barrett et al. 2011). To the extent that the shift towards marine resources was driven by demand from urban populations, one might also expect expanding cities to have been at the forefront of the eventual development of long-distance trade in sh. Apart from the increasing strain that must have been placed on local hinterlands (both terrestrial and marine) by growing cities such as London – whose population is estimated to have climbed from around 20,000 in the twelfth century to around 80,000 in the thirteenth century (Campbell et al. 1993, 24) – trade functions were in any case central to medieval urbanism (Astill 2009; Biddle 1976). Indeed, in this context it is worth noting that signi cant consumption of herring (Clupea harengus) seems to have pre-dated the FEH, speci cally at early medieval proto-urban trading centres (Barrett et al. 2004b; see also Chapters 14–15).
London is thus a good case study through which to explore the onset and development of long-distance trade in sh to England, using cod (Gadus morhua) as our example. Apart from being one of the largest medieval cities in the kingdom, its historic core has also been subject to intensive, high-quality excavation over the past 40 years. Moreover, stable isotope provenancing results suggest that London came to rely on imported cod relatively early, within its southern North Sea context (Barrett et al. 2011), although sample size – and hence representativeness – is ultimately restricted by the practicalities of destructive laboratory analysis.
This chapter presents the results of a meta-analysis of cod remains from 95 sites across London, aimed at detecting changes over time in the contribution of imports, complementing and placing in context the isotopic results. It builds on an earlier publication (Orton et al. 2014), adding assessments of changes in sh preservation techniques and of the spatial distribution of the bone nds. Late and post- medieval trends are also given more attention in the present chapter than in the previous study.