Fish and shellfish

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The people of the ancient Mediterranean world, or at least those who wrote books, had a somewhat ambiguous view of seafood. It was at the same time a dubious foodstuff, and one that had connotations of great luxury, especially in the Roman milieu. There are ongoing debates as to what contribution to the diet fish actually made. In Britain we do not have the wealth of literary sources, but we do have an increasing number of fish bone assemblages, and patterns of consumption are starting to emerge. For fish bones, sampling and flotation are essential. They can be recovered by hand excavation, but the result will be governed by the competence and knowledge of the excavator, and the size of the bone. I well recall in the mid-1970s, when working as a finds supervisor for a big urban excavation, the sudden appearance of cod and ling vertebrae on the finds trays amongst all the normal potsherds and mammal bone. This took place the day after everyone working on the site had listened to a lecture by a highly enthusiastic fish bone specialist. As fish bones go, these are large; but they had rarely appeared in the preceding weeks. It was a classic example of the phenomenon that what goes on the finds tray is what the excavator recognises. Not all digging teams can have the opportunity of being similarly enthused and, even if they are, they would still miss the smaller species.