SMALL MAMMAL REMAINS FOUND IN A SAXON BUCKET AT CARISBROOKE CASTLE, ISLE OF WIGHT, 1981 EXCAVATIONS
Author(s): Simon Davis, Peter King
The skeletons of six common shrews and a woodmouse were found in a bucket in a Saxon chalk-cut grave dated to the sixth century. The shrews have been identified by the size and shape of their mandibles and a suite of non-metric characters as Sorex araneus, common on the English mainland, rather than the closely-related S.coronatus, present on the continent and in Jersey. Carrion-feeding insects and their larvae may have attracted the shrews to the grave while curiosity probably led them to make their fateful climb into the bucket.
- Report Number:
- 17/1992
- Series:
- AML Reports (New Series)
- Pages:
- 26
- Keywords:
- Animal Bone Animal Remains
