Hi everyone, and welcome to my blog. I am a beginner
mudlarker, and through these posts I’d like to share my journey as I learn about
the history of London though my finds. I welcome constructive criticism but be
nice! I hope also that this blog shall also help others with the identification
of common finds on the Thames.
If you’ve never
been mudlarking along the Thames before, you may be surprised about the amount of
bone and animal matter on the foreshore. It has accumulated over many
centuries, and the Thames has acted as a refuge site for rubbish and the detritus
of everyday life- animal waste being one of the by-products of human activity. There
are many large bones around, I have even seen whole jaw bones with teeth
attached. These photos are of horse teeth I have collected, they were very
mysterious when I found them as they seemed so large.
 |
| Mudlarking find: Horse teeth |
How old do you estimate those to be?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, it's hard to date the bones that can be found in the Thames without conducting any tests. Because of the preservation of the Thames mud, bone can be kept in great condition for hundreds of years. So, one century? Two centuries? Three? I cannot be sure. I have however found more identifiable bones such as a wild boar tusk, which is probably very very old. The original British Boar went extinct in the 13th Century.
Delete