Bone taphonomy in deep urban stratigraphy: Case studies from York, United Kingdom

Abstract

Many towns in Northern Europe have over a millennium of continuous occupation, often with high densities of structures and people. At these and other urban sites, including some on the American East Coast, many meters of archaeological deposits accumulate, organic degradation being ameliorated by an often damp temperate climate. Urban archaeology thus often yields copious quantities of animal bone debris, a valuable proxy record of husbandry, trade, consumption and disposal. However, continuous occupation means that people dug into the archaeological deposits of their predecessors’ deposits for construction, disposal, and hygiene purposes. Redeposition is widely recognized as an issue in urban zooarchaeology, and pre-depositional translocation of bones may be at least as significant, if less often acknowledged. In order to evaluate the samples of bones recovered from an urban site, we need to model and assess the origins of excavated assemblages and the principal taphonomic factors acting at different times and places, from the death of the animal and dismantling of the carcass, through in-ground diagenesis, to excavation sampling and curation. The Hungate site in York, UK, is used as an example of the contextual taphonomic analysis of urban assemblages, with further examples drawn from other sites in York and other historic towns across northern Europe.