Human refuse as a major ecological factor in medieval urban vertebrate communities
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
Title of host publication | Human Ecodynamics |
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Date | Published - 2000 |
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Pages | 15-20 |
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Number of pages | 5 |
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Publisher | Oxbow Books |
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Place of Publication | Oxford |
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Original language | English |
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ISBN (Print) | 1842170015 |
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Name | Symposia of the Association for Environmental Archaeology |
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Publisher | Oxbow Books |
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Volume | 19 |
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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.
Reproduced with permission from Oxbow Books.
- towns, organic refuse, scavengers, food webs
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