O'Connor, T.P. (2000) Human refuse as a major ecological factor in medieval urban vertebrate communities. In: Human Ecodynamics. Symposia of the Association for Environmental Archaeology . Oxbow Books , Oxford , pp. 15-20. ISBN 1842170015
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Abstract
Organic refuse, such as food and butchery waste, was commonly deposited in dumps andpits in medieval towns throughout northern Europe. These deposits of refuse attracted and supponed a diverse communily of scavengers and their predators. The organic refuse can be seen as a source of energy that maintained food-webs of donor-controlled populations, giving them potentially high population densities, foundercontrolled response to perturbation, and perhaps a strongly stochastic element in determining which species became dominant at any particular location. The red kite is an example of a scavenger which was strongly dependent on refuse deposition, and it is argued that cats in medieval towns may have lived largely as predators within the refuse-supported food-webs.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Reproduced with permission from Oxbow Books. |
| Keywords: | towns, organic refuse, scavengers, food webs |
| Academic Units: | The University of York > Archaeology (York) |
| Depositing User: | Repository Officer |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Jan 2006 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Feb 2013 15:22 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Oxbow Books |
| Refereed: | No |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/935 |
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