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Taphonomy and contextual zooarchaeology in urban deposits at York, UK

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Abstract

Zooarchaeological research on assemblages from deeply stratified sites in historic towns is complicated by the reworking of bones through intercutting and disturbance. Conversely, structural association with buildings and property boundaries may allow detailed spatial analysis, and interpretation at a close contextual level that reveal small details of people’s lives. Five years of excavation at the Hungate site in York has yielded a very large animal bone assemblage ranging from Roman to early modern times. Assessment of this assemblage has focussed on identifying context groups of good integrity and high research value. In this paper, we present preliminary results from Hungate to show the potential of contextual analysis in urban deposits, and the challenge presented by redeposition and time-averaging.

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Abbreviations

YCA:

York City Archives

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Acknowledgements

This project was undertaken by CR with active supervision from TPO’C whilst CR was employed by York Archaeological Trust. The authors would like to acknowledge all those at York Archaeological Trust, volunteers and staff, who provided time and support to ensure the smooth running of the project. Dr. Jayne Rimmer kindly provided the documentary information and interpretation. We also thank Lee Broderick and Richard Madgwick for organising the ‘Bones in Space’ session at ICAZ 2014 at which this paper was originally presented, and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK

    Clare Rainsford

  2. Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK

    Terry O’Connor

Authors
  1. Clare Rainsford
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  2. Terry O’Connor
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Correspondence to Clare Rainsford.

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Rainsford, C., O’Connor, T. Taphonomy and contextual zooarchaeology in urban deposits at York, UK. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 8, 343–351 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-015-0268-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-015-0268-x

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