The working life of Museum of London

This month zoologist Alan Pipe talks about the resources for the identification of fish and wild bird bones from archaeological sites in London…

Viewers of ‘Time Team’ and readers of archaeological site reports will be familiar with the recovery of animal bones from a wide range of species, usually dominated by those of domesticated mammals of major economic value for meat, milk, wool or traction. With increased wet-sieving of bulk soil samples, particularly over the past four decades, archaeological recovery of smaller species from all vertebrate groups; fish, amphibians, reptiles, small birds and mammals, continues to expand.

London sites produce particularly diverse assemblages of fish and wild birds and each unfamiliar ‘new’ species presents challenges in identification, indeed some bones are not identifiable to species-level. Museum of London Archaeology holds a useful reference collection used for identification purposes. This concentrates mainly on British fish, birds and mammals and has been built up over the years as a valuable resource in support of MOLA zooarchaeological studies.

Even with access to a reference collection and the increasing availability of reference literature and images, the relatively unfamiliar morphology, fragmentation and often small size, of archaeological fish bones are obstacles to their recovery and identification and this has resulted in their relative neglect by many workers and a reliance on external specialists.

 In an attempt to improve our own internal capability, MOLA Osteology has now established a solid nucleus reference collection of the economically important freshwater (e.g. pike), marine/estuarine (e.g. herring and cod) and migratory (e.g. salmon and eel) species most commonly encountered on London sites.  Researchers interested in studying the fauna of London should contact the LAARC