Species Associations Among Insect Remains from Urban Archaeological Deposits and their Significance in Reconstructing the Past Human Environment

Abstract

Assemblages of archaeological insect (mainly Coleoptera) remains from in and around Anglo-Scandinavian buildings at 16–22 Coppergate, York, were investigated in order to identify associations between pairs and groups of species, and to determine the significance of those associations as indicators of past human activity and living conditions. Following initial exploration, a pairwise measure of association was used to establish working groups of co-occurring species, which were then related to their likely habitats. Detrended canonical correspondence analysis (DCCA) was used to test the groups. Robust and consistent species associations were identified among the death assemblages. The groups defined by the analyses usually corresponded to the ecological preferences of species, although some groups of species would not be found together at the present day. Some groups probably represented complexes of habitats that occurred together in the past, and not single communities, and some may be peculiar to Coppergate and similar sites. It is suggested that the species associations are of value in assemblage interpretation, and that variations in associations among sites will reflect archaeologically significant aspects of the sites.