Wearing environment and making islands: Britain's Bronze Age inland north sea

Evans, Christopher

doi:10.15184/aqy.2015.99

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…1). Put another way, if only having the Fenland data then the idea of its marshes serving as an environmental refuge during the Bronze Age – with, along with humans, the impact of its marine flooding accelerating aurochsen extinction (see Evans forthcoming) – could be posited. This reasoning does not, though, seem applicable in the light of the Bedfordshire findings.…”

Section: Extinction and Land-use Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disappearance Beyond Recall: A Social Context for Bronze Age Aurochs Extinction in Britain?

Evans¹

2015

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

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The interest which attaches to the history of extinct British animals can only be equalled by the regret which must be felt, by all true naturalists, at their disappearance beyond recall from our fauna (Harting 1880, 3; emphasis added).The implications of pit-deposits containing aurochs/Bos primigenius skulls dating to the Bronze Age, found in two recent excavations in Bedfordshire are outlined. Involving a review of related findings in south-eastern England, these serve as a platform to consider the dynamics of aurochs extinction, which is held to have occurred in Britain by the middle–later centuries of the 2nd millennium bc. It should be stressed that, although consulting many ‘expert’ colleagues, this paper is not written from a faunal remains-specialist perspective. It is essentially discursive and primarily intended to highlight a significant site-recovery trend. It reflects, moreover, on issues of broad social relevance. Holocene human-induced extinctions have both an inherent curiosity and poignancy. Indeed now, faced with currently threatened mass-species loss, they can even involve – beyond regret – a sense of cumulative guilt.

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Section: Extinction and Land-use Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%