Biological Evidence from Anglo-Scandinavian Deposits at 16-22 Coppergate
Item
- list of authors
- H. K. Kenward
- A. R. Hall
- Is Part Of
- The Archaeology of York [Series]
- The Past Environment of York [Volume]
- volume
- 14
- issue
- 07
- Publisher
- Council for British Archaeology for York Archaeological Trust
- Date Copyrighted
- 1995
- Date Available
- Digitally available on 8 December 2023
- Abstract
- This report describes work on plant and invertebrate remains from a very large corpus of samples from richly organic anoxic 'waterlogged' deposits of Anglo-Scandinavian (mid 9th—mid 11th century) date at 16-22 Coppergate (1976-81.7). Almost all samples examined contained abundant plant and animal remains and these have been used to reconstruct a variety of aspects of human activity and living conditions, and the local environment. Features examined included house floors and backfill dumps within buildings, external layers, pit and gully fills and, to a lesser extent, structural materials. An immense quantity of data has been obtained concerning plant macrofossils, eggs of parasitic worms, a wide variety of arthropods (especially insects) and various other groups. The results are considered from two viewpoints: firstly, a highly condensed systematic summary by period, tenement and feature type, and secondly, a synthesis by topic. The latter includes considerations of conditions within and around the two main phases of buildings at the site, the evidence for diet and health, craft activities (notably dyeing), bee-keeping and many other aspects of everyday life. Some of the practical lessons learned from this project are summarised; it is concluded that large-scale investigations of the fossil biota of complex urban sites are feasible within realistic budgets using appropriately designed practical and analytical techniques.
- Rights Holder
- York Archaeological Trust
- Rights
- CC BY 4.0
- Format
- Portable Document Format (PDF)
- Is Format Of
- Paper publication
- Identifier
- GB2837-PUB-AY-14-7
- oclcnum
- 34148424
- isbn10
- 1872414591
- isbn13
- 9781872414591
- Type
- Text
- Language
- English
- page start
- 435
- page end
- 797
- number of pages
- 363
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