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Scales and Tails: Reptiles in Archaeology - Ep 54
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In this episode of ArchaeoAnimals, Alex and Simona explore the Land of Reptilia. From the humble Grass Snake to the mighty Nile Crocodile, tune in to learn more about reptile remains in archaeology around the world.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/54
Links and Sources
- https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/where_to_see_reptiles
- Bochaton, C. (2022). First records of modified snake bones in the Pre-Columbian archaeological record of the Lesser Antilles: Cultural and paleoecological implications. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 17(1), 126-141.
- Cordero, G. A. (2017). "The Turtle's Shell". Current Biology. 27 (5): R168–R169.
- Gillreath-Brown, A., & Peres, T. M. (2017). Identifying turtle shell rattles in the archaeological record of the southeastern United States. Ethnobiology Letters, 8(1), 109-114.
- Monchot, H., Bailon, S., & Schiettecatte, J. (2014). Archaeozoological evidence for traditional consumption of spiny-tailed lizard (Uromastyx aegyptia) in Saudi Arabia. Journal of archaeological science, 45, 96-102.
- O'Connor, T. (2008) The Archaeology of Animal Bones. Texas A&M University Press.
- Schneider, C. S., Pokines, J. T., L’Abbé, E. N., & Pobiner, B. (2022). Reptile Taphonomy. In Manual of Forensic Taphonomy (pp. 667-694). CRC Press.
- van Wijngaarden-Bakker, L. H., & Troostheide, K. D. (2003). Bones and eggs. The archaeological presence of the grass snake Natrix natrix (L.) in The Netherlands. Environmental Archaeology, 8(2), 111-118.
- Contact
- Alex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitz
- Simona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLady
- Alex’s Blog: Animal Archaeology
- Music "Coconut - (dyalla remix)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Reptiles in Archaeology
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:14
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 54 of Archaeo Animals, Scales and Tails, Reptiles and Archaeology. I'm Alex Fitzpatrick, and with me as always, Siobhan Appalanga. And this episode, we'll be talking about, well, reptiles and archaeology. So tune in to hear more about that. Or something, I don't know. We put reptiles and archaeology in the title, so...
Challenges in Reptile Archaeology
00:00:40
Speaker
So yeah, last episode we did in fact brave the very confusing and somewhat terrifying world of Amphibia. So today we will face yet another similarly difficult journey as we travel to the land of Reptilia.
00:00:59
Speaker
spooky. Possibly even more confusing and terrifying because reptiles are even harder to come by than amphibians. Yeah I mean last episode we did say you know there's a couple reasons why British archaeologists and even British archaeologists tend to kind of ignore amphibians.
Native British Reptiles
00:01:19
Speaker
There's not that many species native to
00:01:22
Speaker
Britain and, you know, small bones, harbor them to kind of last that long in the archaeological record. And let's be real, there are some people who probably just couldn't be bothered. And fair enough, you have finite time on site and there are lots of things to deal with now. Reptiles.
00:01:43
Speaker
Pretty similar story, we do rarely have to deal with them. We only have six native species of reptile, most of which are quite rare now. But like amphibians, reptiles can not only tell us much about past environments, but in some cases, you know, they're also known for cultural or economic value.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, the thing is also with the species that are normally found sort of in the British Isles, they're also so small in size that you're not as likely to retrieve them in an archaeological setting.
Reptile vs. Bird Bones
00:02:21
Speaker
except through environmental soil sampling and that. So the possibilities of finding them as a species that are not super common in the first place, and that also reduces further. As we said, there's only six species that are found in the British Isles, and these are the common lizard, Zutaka vivipera.
00:02:42
Speaker
which is of Epirus, as you might expect from the Latin name, the sand lizard, La Certa Agilis, the very agile would presume, perhaps not as agile, the slow worm, Anguis Fragilis, just literally says that they're fragile in the actual scientific name, it's beautiful, a grass snake, Natrix Elvetica, the adder, Vipera Berus, and the smooth snake, Coronene Laostricaca,
00:03:12
Speaker
tag yourself on the slow worm. Just saying. So yeah, you know, as we did with our last episode, we should probably back up a bit because, you know, we don't really talk about reptiles, per se. So yeah, what exactly are reptiles? Well, they are part of the taxonomic class of reptilia.
00:03:34
Speaker
and they're ectothermic, aka cold-blooded, and they are vertebrates just like amphibians. But what makes them different is that their eggs aren't actually laid in water. As you may remember, amphibians, they do, in fact, lay their eggs in water. So reptiles don't go through that weird awkward phase of, you know, having gills and having to kind of transition out of that.
00:03:59
Speaker
Similarly, they have scales instead of that kind of smooth, moist, wet skin that amphibians need to survive. And I heard Simona give a big sigh potentially over the fact that I use the word moist. You just had to put it in there, didn't you? I mean, how else would you describe amphibian skin? Slippery? They're moist. They're wet. They're big, wet boys.
00:04:28
Speaker
They are a bit slimy. Skeleton wise, I mean, much of the same issues that we've encountered with amphibians in our previous episode, which, by the way, if you cannot listen to it, please go check it out. Yeah, some of the similar skeletal issues remain from an anatomical standpoint, because their size and texture mean that they can often get mixed up for bird bones.
Tortoise and Turtle Skeletal Structures
00:04:51
Speaker
They also have similar, I guess, more similar similarities, similar quirks.
00:04:56
Speaker
example vertebrae numbers are often buried and the vertebrae themselves can be very difficult to differentiate which to be fair if you have narrowed it down to reptile frankly you've won so
00:05:12
Speaker
Of course, there's some particular types of reptile that have their own skeletal quirks. So these are the tortoise and the turtle, which are technically from the same order of the testudinus, where the shells are made of both skeletal and dermal bone. Why not? So the part of the shell that you mostly see is called the carapace, with the shell itself technically connecting other elements of the skeleton, so your vertebrae, ribs, pelvis, shoulders, while the bottom is called the plastron.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to be honest, I spent far too long of my adult life before I got to grad school, not knowing if shells were technically part of the skeletal system for, you know, turtles and tortoises. Yeah, I guess so. They are and they're not. Yeah. That's very helpful.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, they're very interesting, and obviously it lends itself to different types of uses in the archaeological record, which we'll talk about later in this episode.
Cultural Significance of Reptiles
00:06:22
Speaker
You know, obviously even amphibians were not just used for, say, just either kind of existing in the environment or being used in some other kind of cultural way.
00:06:35
Speaker
depending on what kind of region or time period you're working with, but I feel like reptiles in particular have maybe a bit more kind of cultural, not baggage, but cultural weight maybe because of the kind of unique qualities that many of them have. So you have like turtles and stuff, they have shells, which is relatively unique for an animal per se, and then you obviously have
00:07:01
Speaker
you know, snakes, which them themselves have various qualities as between having venom or just being kind of scary, which is not an opinion I share because I was so obsessed with snakes as a child. I desperately wanted a pet snake and my father was too scared of them to allow them in our house and I still kind of want a pet snake. They're cute. I think they're very cute.
00:07:29
Speaker
One thing that was really trying to look up as well, because of course tortoises and turtles are probably just something you're not going to find all too often in British archaeology, unless they were imported in. Although there was a species of turtle that was found in Britain, the European pond turtle Emis orbicularis.
00:07:50
Speaker
apparently was found several thousands of years ago, but they were at one point found in Britain and then went extinct. Yeah, I was kind of surprised reading the list of British reptile species that were extant and also native to the British Isles because I figured up
00:08:11
Speaker
Like, you know, I figured maybe a turtle, right? Like, and obviously, as you say, there was one that did go extinct, but it just it feels strange, I guess. Merle Yeah. And also reptiles in Britain. I mean, they are there, but I guess they're kind of living on the elusive side of life. So I don't think I've ever seen like a singular reptile for all the years I've lived here. So supposedly we get common lizards.
00:08:39
Speaker
where I'm from you get them absolutely everywhere you can't walk anywhere then bam there's a common lizard looking at you funny but never seen one here it is funny yeah like obviously the the United States is in itself just such a massive bland mass that we have a huge diversity of species depending on where you are
00:09:01
Speaker
And, you know, even in New York, we had snakes and turtles and all this kind of stuff.
Personal Stories and Misconceptions
00:09:07
Speaker
And if you go down south, like in places like Florida, it is literally just lizard central among some other larger, maybe more dangerous reptiles down in Florida.
00:09:17
Speaker
But yeah, it's funny to end, okay, this is me going back to kind of support myself and fend for myself and not believing squirrels existed in the UK. Because, you know, not seeing that many reptiles in the UK, I feel like it stands to reason that you may not have squirrels. Just saying.
00:09:41
Speaker
I still don't think it was that wild of an idea. Basically the same thing. It's basically the same thing. I mean, like, yeah, you walk into any sort of British town centre and all you see is just grey squirrels and adders everywhere. Listen, I don't know. I just didn't see a squirrel for like the first couple of years I lived here.
00:10:05
Speaker
And I still haven't seen any reptiles, so, you know, it's basically the same thing to me. Although I was going to ask, Simona, have you ever run into a reptile archeologically? No. OK. Asked and answered. Just nope. It is funny, though.
00:10:25
Speaker
isn't it? Oh, we have a, I'm sensing a message from beyond, I believe someone else has experienced a reptile in the archaeological record. Okay, but it's going to be a really kind of roundabout way. Oh, gosh. So I experienced, I found several newts, or I think there was like salamanders or something.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah. I think they were frozen alive or frozen dead with the ice or something, because I found them in an archaeological site. So technically, they weren't archaeological, but they kind of were archaeological, but they were definitely modern. They had not skeletonized. So that's technically how I found a reptile in an archaeological setting. Well, if it was a nude, then you found an amphibian. Yeah, not a reptile.
00:11:19
Speaker
What about salamanders? Are they not like lizards? Everyone's turning off this podcast. I'm not dignifying that with an answer. OK, so maybe I haven't then. Salamanders are amphibians. See, I definitely knew that and didn't just Google it. OK, well, I don't know my salamanders from my lizards, unfortunately. I will now slink away and go back to producing and try not to make any other silly comments. How did I get that wrong?
00:11:47
Speaker
I'll give you credit because I think that there is overlap in terms of like, obviously, you know, their reptiles and amphibians are cold blooded vertebrates. They lay eggs. So I think that you can kind of mix them up a little bit. I mean, literally, I could not remember if salamanders were amphibians or reptiles because I think also just because like we think of like
00:12:10
Speaker
bigger kind of lizards. They're obviously reptiles. So it would stand to reason in your brain to say, Oh, salamanders are small lizards. Hence they are reptiles, but now they are amphibians. So I guess they're just moist. Moist lizard. I stand corrected. Well, I guess the same with the nude because it's kind of lizard shaped. It's just a slimy lizard.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, because, you know, when if you say name amphibian, you're going to go Prague, right? Or toad. If you say neoreptile, you're going to say snake, lizard, crocodile. You're not really going to say salamander or newt because it's not the first thing you really think of. I don't know. Maybe I'm getting very defensive because we're just showing how little we really know about reptiles and amphibians these two episodes.
00:13:07
Speaker
Case in point, reptiles are very hard to encounter in the archaeological record. Although, of course, you know, as usual, it does back to question saying, is it really that rare or do we not have the tools to proficiently identify it?
00:13:22
Speaker
I mean, some people surely do either. So do you find like a small vertebra and you're going to presume, oh yeah, that's an amphibian. Yeah. And I think also, depending on where you are, obviously some reptiles are, you know, much, much bigger. If we're talking about reptiles here in Britain, like we said, there are a lot of them are
00:13:41
Speaker
you know, relatively small. So if you do find you're lucky enough to even have bones kind of survive to be found, either you're, you know, there's a good chance that you can misidentify them as say bird bone or even, you know, depending on small it is rodent or something like that.
00:14:01
Speaker
in comparison to, say, someone working in Africa who is able to find, you know, a crocodilian bone, which is relatively bigger and probably has a better chance of surviving. So it just, you know, it depends. There's a lot working against British reptiles, unfortunately, when it comes to finding their remains in the archaeological record.
Rarity of Reptiles in British Archaeology
00:14:24
Speaker
Although, of course, it's not to say that it doesn't happen. It does occasionally, but
00:14:29
Speaker
You know, you're not really going to definitely find it. Like we were just saying, Simona, you said you've never found it. I've never found Reptile Bones ever working in zoo archaeology here in Britain, even looking at, you know, site reports and stuff for my research.
00:14:48
Speaker
You occasionally see people who identify frogs, so amphibians, but I don't think I've ever seen a site report, at least in the kind of regions and time periods I work in, ever really mentioned reptiles.
00:15:05
Speaker
because I guess reptiles are just much like amphibians. For the most part, of course, there are notable exceptions of it throughout Britain, but they weren't as extensively used by people to the extent that they would have been used by other populations around the world. So the remains you'll find a more likely sort of paleo-environmental in nature of just, you know, this frog that happened to die at the bottom of this ditch, or that died somewhere near the ditch and the remains got washed in. So again, probably not as a
00:15:36
Speaker
likely to find them under archaeological settings and more likely to find amphibians because Britain is a moist country. And I guess high water tables and ponds and streams and brooks and things and amphibians are going to love that reptiles.
00:15:56
Speaker
We're a wet country for a wet people and a wet biodiversity. That's beautiful, Simona. Thank you for putting that thought out there into the world. And while we reflect on this poetry by Alex, I guess we'll take a break.
00:16:16
Speaker
And we are back with episode 54 of archaeo-animals, scales and tails,
Anthropogenic Use of Reptiles
00:16:21
Speaker
reptiles in archaeology. And as the title goes, we are talking about reptiles in archaeology. And now we're going to talk a bit more about specific species.
00:16:33
Speaker
Now that we know what reptiles broadly are, what makes their bones so peculiar, and why they're so rare here in Britain, Liz might as well kind of take a quick look through some reptiles of note from around the world. Kick this off with the Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard, Oromastyx Egyptia.
00:16:55
Speaker
as you'd expect, just found mainly in Northern Africa and Western Asia. It's broadly related to iguanas and chameleons coming from the same taxonomics of order. This referred to as the tab. These lizards were prominent among zoocological evidence found at the site of Al Yamama in Saudi Arabia, which was an historically important agricultural center within the region.
00:17:19
Speaker
Remains were representative of all parts of the lizard, but a combination of the proximity of other bones related to food waste, as well as cut marks on tibias, possibly indicate anthropogenic use of the lizards, likely to obtain leather and meat during the medieval period at the site.
00:17:38
Speaker
which is really interesting because we just were talking about, you know, how here in Britain you don't really, you aren't really going to see reptile remains being used anthropogenically. It's usually just going to be kind of natural deposits. So it's interesting to see a lizard
00:17:58
Speaker
be used for, because obviously there are various reptiles that are historically eaten, and eaten to this day. Even speaking from the United States, Gator is still quite popular in Southern cuisine, and I have not eaten it, and I really want to try it at some point.
00:18:17
Speaker
But yeah, it's interesting that you would have lizards being utilized for food, most likely, or for leather, which is also something I never really thought about, but obviously makes sense because it's what happens even today with, you know, snakeskin and things like that. Just wondering with lizards, how many lizards do you need to craft a viable piece of leather?
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, because they're not, I don't think they're necessarily that big. They're kind of big. They're like, sort of big. I'm looking at a picture now trying to figure out how big they are. I mean, they're bigger than a common lizard, put it that way. 10 inches to 36 inches or more. Oh, okay. It's a respectively sized lizard.
00:19:08
Speaker
So yeah, usually this particular one usually ranges more towards the larger.
Butchery Methods for Reptiles
00:19:16
Speaker
So there's a decent amount of
00:19:19
Speaker
lizard leather there to use. But I guess if there's there were fair amounts found at this site. So could be pretty boys. Yeah. And I guess looking at photos of this litter saying how much leather can you make? Don't like that.
00:19:41
Speaker
And also, obviously, the amount of leather you would need, it really depended on what the leather was being used for. I don't think they really, in the report I looked at, I don't think they really got into kind of speculating what the leather was being used for, because there wasn't really much to go on besides these cut marks on the tibia bones.
00:20:05
Speaker
as far as kind of interpreting what they were using it for but you know it's not just clothing is it it's belts it's handle it's like things for tools it's uh loads of other things that could be using it for so i guess it doesn't necessarily need that minute need lizards for something like that
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess that the cut marks and the tibia kind of checks out for use, you know, like for substance. You'll see a sort of like portion in the carcass, because of course, you'd have your sort of primary butchering or you butcher the animal first thing that goes head, feet, and then everything else sort of gets
00:20:43
Speaker
portioned so you'll have like different types of chop marks showing the portion of the carcass and then when you're sort of slicing so the meat on the bone trying to fillet it you'll see sort of further cut marks on the long bones then.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think they noted any other cut marks on other parts of the bone unless that wasn't necessarily something that was found that would be interesting to know. I guess you wouldn't... I'm trying to think now, because how would you properly butcher a lizard, Simona?
00:21:18
Speaker
I guess also like lizards as well because you know with a lot of say to make comparison sort of with avian remains you don't necessarily see a ton of butchery marks on chickens yes if you cook a whole chicken you can pretty much dismember it like on the bone so could something similar be happening with reptiles do you really need to butcher them
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think that might actually be the case. I feel like I've read something that's kind of like, I mean, you know, there's a very common that everything's like chicken, right? But I think actually, because of the size as well, I think a lot of smaller reptiles aren't necessarily that dissimilar.
00:22:02
Speaker
So I don't know if anyone out there is listening and either, you know, consumes reptiles or knows just based on whatever how reptiles are butchered. I'd actually really love to know how do you butcher because it's something that, you know, butchery was always something that I had in mind during my PhD. I was like, I'm going to also learn how to do butchery because I think that would be a very valuable skill to have as an archaeologist and obviously never got around to it.
00:22:30
Speaker
But it's still something I'm really interested in because of how many, just the conception of butchery and it becoming its own art form and how it's developed over time is really interesting to me. Because obviously you have to know the ins and outs of animals, but how it differentiates between species is also interesting because of how body shapes are and morphology and things like that.
00:22:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for sure. Like knowledge of sort of butchery techniques would be invaluable. It's definitely a transferable skills into archaeology as well. Yeah. Because in a way, like if you if you're puzzled by this type of chop mark, and why is this sort of scapula being cut in exactly this way, like a butcher will know.
00:23:12
Speaker
And it's something that doesn't necessarily change over time. Obviously, you know, technical know-how and technical advances change it slightly where, you know, realistically, if you look at a cut, you can kind of tell if it's something a bit older.
00:23:27
Speaker
or a bit more modern, right? But for the most part, you know, knowing what's a good cut as far as where the meat is doesn't necessarily change per se. I mean, obviously we breed animals differently, but it's not like, you know, all the meat's going from like the leg now to the head. So we've changed butchery, you know what I mean?
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, this is more like the tools that have changed over time. So you see, like, I mean, it's been a bit of a tangent here, but I think the souls get introduced in Britain under the Roman period that I've not mentioned the Romans in a while. And that, of course, like being able to actually like sort of saw bone like like chop marks and butchery, like quite a bit quicker. And so as you get sort of sharper and sharper implements, you have some cut marks,
00:24:15
Speaker
in the medieval period with like knives and implements are so like sharp and they'll make such a tiny trace on the bone that sometimes you need sort of magnifying lenses to actually see them.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess in some ways I'm also interested as to what kind of tools were being used to butcher these lizards as well. Because again, they're not necessarily that big. And we know reptile bone is a little more on the fragile side, comparatively to a lot of other animals of that size. So yeah, it would be interesting to kind of get more details about that.
00:24:53
Speaker
I guess my money is on the fact that if you cook the whole animal you just do some primary butchery so get the head off and that depending on the size of the animal but then once it's been cooked you kind of don't need to chop it any further of course if you're talking about a crocodile you might have to do some butchery on that bad boy
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's the next one. How did you know? So yes, the Nile crocodile, also known as crocodilius nilloticus, because this is from the Nile nilloticus.
00:25:25
Speaker
So clever. So yeah, obviously based on the name, it's probably not a surprise to know that it's local to Africa and act as apex predators in these environments. It is the largest crocodilian in Africa, but actually only the second largest crocodilian overall. The largest is the saltwater crocodile of Asia and Oceania, like other crocodiles.
00:25:48
Speaker
the Nile crocodile has an exceptionally powerful bite. Although interestingly, the muscles for opening their mouths are quite weak in comparison. So one of the main ways to control them is just to keep their mouth shut. If they can close their mouth on you, that's bad news. But when it comes to opening them, you could literally just kind of
00:26:11
Speaker
I don't even think it necessarily requires that much force to even hold them down, and it takes a lot for them to open them, so there you go. But yeah, it is something that's actually really important for archaeologists to consider. Why? Because of Tophonomy, which I feel like we haven't talked about in a while.
00:26:29
Speaker
So real quick, taphonomy. It's basically what happens to dead things once they're kind of in the ground or basically after they're dead and all the things that happen to them over time because of nature, because of humans, because of animals, because of archaeologists. That's all taphonomy. Anyway, so
00:26:51
Speaker
Taphonomy and crocodiles are actually really important to kind of put those two together, particularly the impact of crocodilians biting on bones. Given their bite force, signs of crocodile biting and scavenging can include dismemberment, intense trauma on remains. However, their tooth marks are actually really difficult to differentiate from scavengers. So now crocodiles in particular are actually a little bit more
00:27:21
Speaker
characteristic. They often leave behind really fractured bone with marks consisting of hooks, gores with pivots. So basically, they're curved marks at like a 45 degree angle, and also clusters of pitting, which are like, you know, little kind of not that deep circular kind of holes, and drag snags, which are deep puncture marks that are elongated into like long lines.
00:27:51
Speaker
And they have the similarly unique characteristic of leaving only the distal and proximal ends of long bones intact. So they go just for the epiphysis, the shaft. It's really interesting. And again, something we obviously here in Britain don't ever have to think about. When we look at gnawing, we're usually looking at, you know, cats, dogs, and rodents. But depending on where you are, you might have to understand how crocodilians are
00:28:19
Speaker
affecting bones, which is wild. Because it's almost the opposite of what we get in terms of carnivore gnawing, because as you said, a lot of the carnivore gnawing will be carried out, say by dogs, foxes, it's not discount foxes, it's just like, how do you turn them up? Because the pitting on the surface of the bone is the one that you tend to find quite a bit. So in the gnawing, but that tends to be
00:28:43
Speaker
and the Epiphysis. I don't know if you have a distal end of a sheep female sort of pitted all over the place and there's lots of gnawing, normally by sort of canids, canids of some description, but yeah that tends to be on the Epiphysis as opposed to the Shaft.
00:28:58
Speaker
And it makes sense because obviously when a lot of, you know, dogs, foxes, when a
Crocodile Bite Impact on Bones
00:29:04
Speaker
lot of those kind of animals scavenge and gnaw and bone, they usually, you know, they've got the bone kind of in like their two paws and they angle it up so that the distal ends are usually kind of, or proximal ends are usually like
00:29:21
Speaker
in their mouth. But I guess, yeah, with crocodiles, for example, because of the shape of their their jaws and mouths and the fact that they got these little tiny little hands that little grabby hands, I can't do much. It's going to just be chomp, chomp, chomp. And what are you going to chomp, chomp, chomp on, really? So just just trying to picture a crocodile trying to grab like a gazelle with like this pause.
00:29:47
Speaker
It can't. So we can't judge that they can only kind of go for the shaft of bones. Chomp, chomp, chomp. But I kind of love the idea of having to like do a taphonomy report and just being like, yeah, this is a crocodile. That's cool. I'm jealous.
00:30:07
Speaker
or someone will quote you in a report like, yes, down the line. Like, like, oh, and it seems like the crocodile as I got hold of the remains undone. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Dr. Fitzpatrick 2022. I mean, am I wrong? Finally, we're gonna go to maybe less exciting, but still, you know, we got to talk about the grass snake as our last example.
00:30:36
Speaker
Always offending the wildlife. First it was the fish, then it was the squirrels. Now you're insulting the humble grass snake, Natrix, Natrix. They're just like, okay, we just talked about crocodiles, and like, I love snakes. I love snakes so much, but they're not necessarily as exciting as a Nile crocodile, right? Unless you're a snake enthusiast. I am a snake enthusiast! Not enthusiastic enough! Anyway. No, I'm realistic!
00:31:04
Speaker
The home of grass snake is found throughout Europe and Northern Africa where it's also known as the ring snake or the water snake. Now both of those nicknames kind of make sense, in fact you know the grass snake has a characteristic like white yellowish colour behind its head hence ring snake and it does enjoy living and just swooshing around. I don't know what kind of movement verb would you use to describe a snake movement? Do they swoosh?
00:31:33
Speaker
Moist. I mean these ones aren't moist because they do like to live near water so they're slightly moist reptile. Yes grass snakes, cultural significance amongst many northern European cultures, they're particularly prominent in Latvian and Lithuanian folk tales.
00:31:50
Speaker
just to mention a few. Excavations are several later prehistoric sites across the Netherlands found the substantial assemblages of remains, including eggs, which amazing that they found those, but including eggs of grass snakes. So it's likely that these were indicative of agricultural activities taking place on site.
00:32:11
Speaker
But the fact that we seem to be missing the skulls could also suggest the use of grass snake skin and meat. So like, and see, you know, that primary butchery with the head and the feet go off first, because in the case of the snake, there's no feet to chomp. But then I guess it could also be due to them, maybe like a lower survivability rate of reptile skulls, because they are kind of they have a million bones in there, and they're all very fragile. One of them.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's a bit tricky, isn't it? It's kind of like fish as well because, you know, with fish, if you don't find the heads, there's a bit more of an indication that perhaps you're looking at fish being consumed or used and having been taken out from another site to a processing site, perhaps where they've cut the head off already and you've got the bones for the body, which, you know, you're predominantly will be eating. So but again, like fish,
00:33:03
Speaker
you know, there's so many bones, so many fathom bones in a fish head, that it's also like, well, it could also be that the, you know, the survival viability rate isn't that high. So a bit difficult in this case to kind of make those, you know, those clear cut interpretations, but it is really cool that they found the eggs of crass snakes. That must have been exciting, to be honest.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, wow.
Agricultural Indicators in Archaeology
00:33:35
Speaker
The eggs? Well, why are we more over than humble grass snakes' eggs? Guess we'll take a break. And we're back, folks, with episode 54 of archaeo-animals, scales and tails, reptiles in archaeology. We are at our case studies part of our episode, where we'll be talking about very specific case studies of reptiles being found in the archaeological record.
00:34:02
Speaker
And yes, this is everyone's favorite. We have to always acknowledge this fact that isn't real and is something I made up about 50 episodes ago. And we've just committed to this bit and we can't not commit to the bit anymore. Just keep the lie consistent.
00:34:19
Speaker
Like many parts of my life, I keep the lie going until I die, so it's fine. Anyway, our first case study is from the Lesser Antilles, which are a series of islands in the Caribbean Sea and include places such as Dominica, Barbados, Aruba, and St. Martin, alongside loads of other kind of small islands and regions like that.
00:34:44
Speaker
So examination of many prehistoric assemblages, in fact, I think most prehistoric assemblages found across these islands have indicated the presence of snake remains in half of them. However, a combination of small amounts per assemblage, so not enough to be used as evidence for subsistence or other anthropogenic usage and kind of a lack of expertise and identification down to species
00:35:13
Speaker
which is also due to a lack of comparative material available, has made their usefulness in zoarchological research problematic. However, more recent work looking specifically for the presence of boa snakes among these assemblages has actually generated some really interesting results. So, for example,
00:35:35
Speaker
Closer examination of the snake remains to identify them two species has actually revealed evidence of modification on some of the vertebra, specifically the kind of polishing a taphonomy, which has clearly been trying to make them more rounded and more bead-like. So obviously, these remains have been interpreted as evidence of manufacturing vertebra into beads.
00:36:04
Speaker
which is super interesting, especially knowing how difficult it is to find tophonomy on vertebra, someone who has done that a couple of times on fish vertebra. It's not fun. And it's incredibly impressive that this was kind of picked up. So the really interesting thing is that this action seems to be specific only to boas, as similar evidence has not been seen on kind of the more represented snake species.
00:36:32
Speaker
in these assemblages. So it could be indicative of a certain cultural status. It could be, of course, there's survival bias at hand. We know that many boa snakes like the boa constrictor are pretty big in comparison to other snakes.
00:36:50
Speaker
But combined with historical ethnographic studies, this likely speaks to a particular status of boas among most indigenous communities as something to respect and fear, thus explaining their relative absence in deposits compared to other snakes because they weren't being actively hunted or really interacted with by
00:37:12
Speaker
the indigenous communities around here. But obviously more work needs to be done. But yeah, I really liked this kind of case study just because one, like I said, fine invertebra taphonomy is extremely hard. And it's interesting that they were just trying to identify the bones to species and then found this.
00:37:34
Speaker
But also, it's interesting to see the impact of not having comparative material available. And I think we kind of talked about this with the amphibians. But with amphibian species and reptile species, you do tend to have a lot of either close to endangered or endangered species amongst those. And obviously, that means finding comparative material, which for those of you who don't know, a lot of zoo archaeologists use.
00:38:03
Speaker
modern comparative bones to kind of compare them with archaeological remains to identify the species. Obviously it's a bit more problematic to have that for more rare species. So it's interesting to see that impact research like this.
00:38:21
Speaker
Well, it's very interesting because, as I said, I've never come across reptilian remains, so much less reptilian remains, which show signs of modification. Yeah, I can't remember how they actually found that. Like I said, boa snakes tend to be quite big, but vertebra are still not the biggest thing in the world. So when I did my master's research on fish bones,
00:38:44
Speaker
For some horrible reason that no one talked me down from, I decided to use scanning electron microscopy. So this really powerful big microscope to look at the fish vertebrae, which we had a lot, if not thousands, and kind of look to see for evidence of consumption. So obviously for fish, it's
00:39:11
Speaker
the slightest chance of finding butchery, which I don't think I found any. But the main taphonomic thing I found was evidence of digestion. Obviously a lot of fish bones are quite small, you can swallow them. And not just humans, many animals will just swallow the fish whole.
00:39:32
Speaker
And as it goes down your digestive tract, it actually causes a very particular type of compression and erosion of the bone. It's very, very hard. I spent a lot of hours looking at really tiny bones for that. So extremely cool that they were able to kind of find it, I guess.
00:39:52
Speaker
reptile vertebra isn't necessarily as bad as fish vertebra, though probably not that far off.
Reptiles as Cultural Artifacts
00:40:01
Speaker
But it's really interesting. Yeah, so being able to tell that the identifier like positively gets to follow me as well, because I don't know to what extent evidence of modification is present on this vertebra. But normally, you know, sometimes some bones can actually show like signs of polishing, like
00:40:18
Speaker
naturally, so like if there's water movement, if they just roll around the ground, you can get some, but then it's also being able to tell like, okay, this is natural, so like a natural daphanonic event versus these have been polished, so it's an anthropogenic factor. So yeah, good on them.
00:40:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I think a lot of this is still very preliminary. I mean, the report I read was very upfront about the fact that a lot of work needs to be done and really kind of highlighted these limitations I talked about as far as, you know, not having as much evidence to really concretely say anything about
00:40:58
Speaker
the use of snake remains, specifically bower remains. But I think having the historical ethnographic studies as well, which again, I'm not sure if we really talked about, you know, the fact that ethnographic studies are often used in archaeological interpretation.
00:41:16
Speaker
And in that, you know, if you do an ethnographic study, so, say, interviewing descendant communities, indigenous communities, things like that, and understanding their perspective of, say, how certain animals are used, or even like family histories or oral histories, you can use that with archaeological evidence and kind of get a better idea of interpretations. So it's interesting to see that combination in there.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yes, of course, they're incredibly useful and fascinating.
Ethnographic Studies in Archaeology
00:41:47
Speaker
So of course, so long as you remember sort of the limitations of it, because, because by using the ethnographic record, like if you apply a sort of word for word, so to speak, in a way, you're kind of making the assumption that that culture has not changed for 2000 years, which of course, isn't the case. And also, again, not not the case here, but just speaking broadly, where people
00:42:09
Speaker
can use things from the ethnographic record of a culture and then apply it to somewhere completely different on the other side of the globe and say, oh, but because there was this culture in the southeastern United States, they used to do this. So this culture in New Zealand must have been doing it for the same reason, which no. Yeah, definitely can be used problematically. But I think you can also say that about basically everything in archaeology, everything ever. If your hashtag like archaeology is problematic.
00:42:39
Speaker
I feel like problematic is a soft word for what archaeology has historically done.
00:42:46
Speaker
But yeah and for our second case study we're going back to the world of turtles. We're moving to the southeastern United States. Now of course turtles have been utilized across North America for sustenance and sociocultural reasons like for a very long time you see you know the shells being used as bowls cups effigies you know among other things. What we are specifically going to be talking about for this case study are turtle shell rattles
00:43:13
Speaker
which traditionally have been used by many sort of southeastern indigenous groups such as the Cherokee, the Shawnee, the Chickasaw and the Seminole peoples. Now turtle shell rattles are made from a variety of species but in this particular region of North America they're mostly made from the eastern box turtles, the Terra Pena, Carolina Carolina Carolina. Guess where they're mostly found?
00:43:36
Speaker
Other fun fact, box turtles, I call that because they can actually close up their shells like a box due to a hinge at the bottom of their shell. So yeah, I got a note here from Alex saying I wish you could do that. I do. That would be amazing if I could close myself up like a box.
00:43:53
Speaker
So you don't want to be bothered and just go, no, I'm in my box. You can't touch me in my box. But anyway, what makes the turtle shell rattles so interesting from a zoocological perspective is how difficult it is to differentiate between a worked shell that has been used as a rattle, thus a turtle shell showing modification during cooking.
00:44:15
Speaker
Now archaeologists have since been able to identify sort of several key characteristics to help differentiate between the two uses including sort of whether there are any associated ceremonial ritual objects, whether it's a funerary context, if there's a species preference for subsidence like vis-a-vis the crafting of rattles and the additional rattle implements which would normally take the place, take the form of pebbles, freshwater drum
00:44:43
Speaker
alpodinato scruniens, usually their teeth, and seeds, which would again all be used to sort of create that rattling noise. The characteristic that is probably most interesting for zoo archaeologists involved representation and modification.
00:45:01
Speaker
Rattles are only representative of two elements of the turtle skeleton, so you have the carapace, the top we'll know that, and the plastron as we've learned is the bottom part, so aka you know the shell. The addition of other elements in a deposit may suggest that you're looking at food waste as opposed to just literally just finding
00:45:22
Speaker
the carapace and the plastron. In terms of modification there are two things to mainly look out for whether it's intentional modification or unintentional modification. It's intentional where you find for example actual sort of drilling into the shell which would allow the sound to be produced as well as to tie the shell to arms and legs sometimes to a hide
00:45:46
Speaker
However, you can also get unintentional modification that can be made during this process. So stress marks, polishing from use. So again, we're talking about polishing just earlier, you can also get accidental polishing through sort of repeated use and touching
00:46:02
Speaker
of the the object of the bone object for example. Now there's other signs of modification in the form of cut marks sort of snapping etc which of course will be more associated with fruit remains and of course you know being able to differentiate between these different types of bone modification is vital to understanding you know
00:46:23
Speaker
what the turtle remains would have been used for, give you a more sort of accurate understanding of the activities on site. And of course, in the particular context of the southeastern United States, there's also a potentially more important purpose. Because if you sort of positively identify cultural objects within the deposit, then you have more of a claim under NAPRA, which will allow them for the repatriation of indigenous artefacts and remains.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, I realize, you know, obviously we talk about animal bones, predominantly on this show, as we are a zoo archaeology show. So we don't really ever talk about the kind of, you know, we were just talking about archaeology is problematic. We don't really talk about the kind of ethical considerations that other
00:47:12
Speaker
parts of archaeology usually get more scrutiny under, you know, obviously, if you're working with humor remains, and if you're working with certain cultural material artifacts, you have to consider, you know, respect and you'll have to consider
00:47:30
Speaker
sovereignty and repatriation.
Indigenous Sovereignty and Repatriation
00:47:33
Speaker
And obviously, for the United States, this often falls under NAGPRA, the NAGPRA Act, which covers repatriation for Indigenous artifacts and remains. And with animal bones, you don't necessarily deal with that, you know.
00:47:51
Speaker
For the most part, animal remains in archaeological records are either kind of natural deposits because animals are all around us or their consumption. So they're kind of rubbish, basically. But this was an interesting case study that
00:48:09
Speaker
you know, turtle rattles are cultural objects and not only would they help you kind of have more of a claim for kind of repatriation or indigenous sovereignty over a certain deposit if you found them, but also, you know, they themselves are cultural artifacts that should go back to the descendant communities from which they came from.
00:48:34
Speaker
And, you know, there's probably more examples of kind of animal-based artifacts that are really important cultural objects that should be repatriated or, you know, again included in more Indigenous sovereignty and agency over what's being done with their artifacts.
00:48:54
Speaker
But yeah, we don't really get to talk about that, I think, on this podcast. And obviously, I think anyone who talks about archaeology, it's important to emphasize the importance of these kind of acts and of the kind of moral obligation I think archaeologists at least should have to make sure that ancestor remains and cultural objects and all these kind of things go back to where they belong, with whom they belong.
00:49:22
Speaker
really, or at least that these descendants and Indigenous communities have a say in what happens to them. So yeah, I think that was interesting to kind of briefly mention that. Like I said, I don't think we will normally have an opportunity to really talk about that, but again, I think it's very important. And also, to bring the mood up a bit, I will
00:49:48
Speaker
admit another Alex moment in that I just thought, hmm, I've never been to the southeastern United States and then remembered where North Carolina is, which is where my family now lives in. So, there. I mean, the box turtle that we literally just talked about is the terra fae, the Carolina Carolina. Listen,
00:50:14
Speaker
they don't ask you to know geography in archaeology. So, yeah. Anyway, I think that's enough of that for this episode. And I think I need to go look at a map of the United States, a country that I spent 22 years of my life living in and kind of figure out what's going on there.
00:50:41
Speaker
Anyway, as long-time listeners know, but I'll say it anyway, you can find us wherever. You download your podcasts, and if you're there, think about subscribing or following our show. Think about leaving us a review. A nice one, hopefully. And tell your friends about us.
00:51:01
Speaker
We always like to get new listeners to listen to our nonsense and be completely confused all the time. We are on Twitter still somehow, at archaeoanimals. Follow us on there. And again, let us know what you want us to do episodes on because we do like doing listener request episodes, especially when they have basically nothing to do with your archaeology and have more to do with video games.
00:51:26
Speaker
I am itching for a video game episode. It has been a time. I mean, we had the alien one, but that was it was briefly touched on like a handful of video games. It's not quite. Yes, please, please give us a request to do another video game episode. Simona is dying. But I think that about does it for us. So see you next month for our next episode. Until then, I'm Alex with Patrick. Simona Falanga.
00:52:11
Speaker
And you've been listening to Arceo Animals. Goodbye! Bye!
00:52:13
Speaker
You can find us on Twitter at rqanimals. Also, the views expressed on the podcast are those of ourselves, the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent those of our institutions, employers, and the archaeology podcast network. Thanks for listening.
00:52:33
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Laura Johnson. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.