00:00.00 Alex And we are back with episode 54 of archae animalsimal scales and tails reptiles in archaeology and as the title goes we are talking about reptiles and archaeology and now we're going to talk a bit more about specific species now that we know. What reptiles broadly are what makes their bones so peculiar and why they're so rare in here in Britain as might as well kind of take a quick look through some reptiles of note from around the world. 00:35.10 Cpt Granarius So like kick this off with the egyptian spiny tailed lizard uroastics a egyptia as you'd expect um just found mainly in Northern Africa and Western Asia it's broadly related to iguanas and chameleons. Coming from the same taxonomics sub border this referred to as the tabb. Um, these lizards were prominent among zo archeological evidence found at the site of um aa mama in Saudi Arabia which was a historically important agricultural center within the region. 01:08.86 Cpt Granarius Ah, 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 sort of anthropogenic use of the Lizards likely to obtain leather and meat. Ah, during the medieval period at the site which is really interesting because we just. 01:27.94 Alex 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 anroogenticly. It's usually just going to be kind of. Natural deposits. So. It's interesting to see a lizard be used for because obviously there are various reptiles that are historically eaten and you know eaten to this day. Yeah, even speaking from the United States gator is still quite popular. And southern cuisine and I have not eaten it and I really want to try it at some point. But yeah, it's 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. 02:20.62 Cpt Granarius And this is something I Never really thought about but obviously makes sense because it's what happened. 02:26.27 Alex Happens even today with you know, snakeskin and things like that. 02:30.29 Cpt Granarius Now Just wondering with Lizards how many Lizards do you need to craft a that like ah, a viable piece of leather. Yeah. 02:38.34 Alex 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 look at a picture now trying to figure out how big they are. 02:53.82 Cpt Granarius Yeah I mean that they're bigger than a common lizard per that way ten inches to thirty six inches or more. Oh okay, it's a respectably sized lizard. So yeah, usually this particular one. 02:57.31 Alex Ten inches to thirty six inches or more. So yeah, usually this particular one usually ranges more towards the the larger. So. There's a decent amount of lizard leatherer there to use. But I guess. 03:11.13 Cpt Granarius Usually ranges more to. 03:21.89 Alex If there's there were a fair amounts found at this site so could be I don't know yeah and I guess you know. 03:26.40 Cpt Granarius Could be. They're pretty boys. Yeah so I felt really bad for looking at photos of this lid saying how much leather can you make I the oh look Don don't like that and also obviously the amount of leather you would. 03:40.79 Alex 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 the report I looked at I don't think they really got into kind of speculating What the leather was being used for because. 03:46.27 Cpt Granarius Need that is. 04:00.55 Alex You know there there wasn't really much to go on besides these cut marks on the tibby of bones 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 a handle. It's like things for tools. It's ah. 04:19.42 Cpt Granarius It airrefore. So I guess it doesn't necessarily need that minute. Yeah I guess that the cut marks and the tiia kind of checks out for use you know life for subsistence, you'll see a sort of like portion in the carcass because of course you'll have your. 04:19.89 Alex Lots of other things I could be using it for So I guess it doesn't necessarily need that minute need Lizards for something like that. 04:32.23 Alex If. 04:38.30 Cpt Granarius Sort of primary butchery. You know you butcher the animal First thing that goes head feet and then everything else sort of gets portioned so you have like different types of like chop marks showing the portion of of the carcass and then when you're sort of um slicing so of the meat on the bone trying to fill it. It. You'll see sort of further cut marks on the lung bones. Then ah Bri. Yeah I don't think they noted any other comments. 05:00.95 Alex 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 try to think now because ah, how would you. But would you properly butcher a Lizard simona. 05:21.20 Cpt Granarius I Ah but guess also like but Lizards as well because you know with a lot of a say to make a comparison sort of with Avian Remains you don't necessarily see a ton of butchery marks on chickens. 05:34.43 Alex Yes, yeah. 05:36.54 Cpt Granarius You cook a whole chicken. You can pretty much dispember it like on the bone so could something similar be happening with reptiles. Do you really need to butcher them. Yeah I think that might actually be significant. 05:49.69 Alex 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. 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 So I don't know if anyone out there is listening and either you know, yeah it consumes reptiles or nose just based on whatever how reptiles are Butchered. We'd 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 Ph D 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 a zo archeologist and obviously never got around to it. But it's still something I'm really interested in because of how many. Like the just the conception of butchery and it becoming. It's kind of its own like 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 also interesting because of how body shapes are and morthology and things like that. 06:50.50 Cpt Granarius I Because obviouslym sure you have to know the ins and outs of animals. 07:02.81 Cpt Granarius I oh yeah, like for for sure like knowledge or sort of butchery techniques would be invaluable like and ah it's definitely a transferable skills into ah archaeology as well 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. 07:11.40 Alex Yeah. 07:20.10 Cpt Granarius Ah, but you will know and it's something that doesn't necessarily. 07:20.91 Alex 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 you because if you look at a cut you can kind of tell with's something a bit older or. A bit more modern 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. 07:48.62 Cpt Granarius And I mean obviously we bring. 07:54.94 Alex You know all the meats going from like the leg now to the head and so we've changed butchery. You know I mean. 08:01.22 Cpt Granarius And yeah, this is more like the tools that have changed over time so you see like I mean it's gotten a bit of a tangent here but think the saws get introduced in Britain under the roman period there I've not mentioned the romans in a while. Um. 08:03.59 Alex And. 08:17.94 Cpt Granarius And that of course like being able to actually like sort of soar bow like that like makes Cho Mark and butchery like quite a bit quicker and sort of as you get sort of sharper and sharper implements. You have some cut marks 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 um, magnifying lenses to actually see them. Yeah I digress yes, in some ways I'm also like interested in. 08:42.34 Alex Yeah, so I guess in some ways I'm also so like interested as to what kind of tools were being used to to butcher these Lizards as well because again, they're not necessarily that big and we know reptile bone is. 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. 09:09.41 Cpt Granarius I Yeah guess my money is on the fact that if you cook the whole animal. Maybe just do some primary butchery. So get the head off and that and depending on the size of the animal but then world has been Cooked. You kind of don't need to chop it any further. Of course, if you're talking about. Ah, crocodile you you might have to do some butchery on that bad. Boy. Ah, and that's see what it is that presently? Yeah,, That's the next one. How did you know? Just yeah I'm I'm omniscient like that. 09:33.83 Alex Ah, and that's surprisingly yeah, that's the the next one. How did you know. 09:44.15 Alex Say yes, the Nile crocodile also known as. 09:48.37 Cpt Granarius I Krocoilius Niloticus because this is from the Nile and ne niloticus so clever. Anyway. 09:54.81 Alex So yeah, obviously based on the name. It's probably not surprised to know that it's local to Africa and act as apex predators in these environments. It is the largest crocodelian in Africa but actually only the second largest crocodelian overall. The largest is the saltwater crocodile of Asia and Oceania like other crocodiles. 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 in them. You could literally just kind of like I don't even think it necessarily requires that much force to even hold them down. Um and it takes a lot for them to open them. So. There you go? Um, but yeah, it is something that's actually really important for archaeologists to consider why because of taphonomy which I feel like we haven't talked about in a while. So real quick taphonomy. It's basically what happens to dead things. Once they're kind of in the grant war. 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 autophonomy anyway. So taonomy and crocodiles. 11:25.81 Alex Actually really important to kind of put those 2 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 actually really difficult to differentiate from sccangers. So now crocodiles in particular are actually a little bit more characteristic. Ah characteristic, characteristic. There. You go sorry about that. Ah, they often leave behind really fractured bone with cheek marks consisting of hooks scores with pivots. So basically they're curved marks at like a ° angle and also clusters of pitting which are like you know, little kind of not that deep. So. 12:20.10 Alex Ah, circular kind of holes and drag snags which are deep puncture marks that are elongated into like long lines and they have the similarly unique characteristic of leaving only the distal and proximal ends of long bones intact. 12:37.71 Cpt Granarius And so they go just for example. 12:39.60 Alex So they go just for the epiphasis. 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 ah 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. 12:47.41 Cpt Granarius We andnawing. We're usually looking at you know. 12:59.12 Alex Affecting Bones which is wild. 13:01.95 Cpt Granarius Life is wild because there's almost the opposite of what we get in terms of Carnival gnawing because as you said a lot. The carninoing will be carried out say by dogs foxes. That's not the scound foxes just like how'd you tell them apart. Um, because the piing. 13:10.95 Alex Of course. 13:17.46 Cpt Granarius On The surface of the bow when is the one that you tend to find quite a bit so in the gnowing but that tends to be at the Epithesis. So but you have a distal end of a sheep theme and is sort of pitted all over the place and there's lots of gnawing normally by sort of canids ah caid of some description. But yeah, that tends to be on. Epiphasis as opposed to the shaft. 13:40.20 Alex And it it. It makes sense because obviously when a lot of you know dogs foxes when a lot of those kind of animals s scavennge and gnaw on bone. They usually you know they've they've got the bone kind of in like their 2 paws and they they angle it up so that the ah the. 13:58.32 Alex Distal ends are usually kind of or proximal ends are usually like 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 flow grabbby hands I can't do much. 14:16.84 Cpt Granarius I chomp and pretty good. So just just trying to picture a crocodile trying to grab like a gazelle with like this is it's pauses over sorry so yeah, you can't John. 14:17.19 Alex It's going to just be chop Chop chop and what are you going to Chop Chomp Chomp on really. 14:29.62 Alex It can't So yeah, we can be. 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. 14:34.30 Cpt Granarius They can only kind of go for the shaft and and I kind of love the idea of having to like. 14:48.36 Alex Um, Dallas. 14:49.91 Cpt Granarius A or someone will quote you in a in a report like years down the line like and it's like a hole and it seems like the crocodile as ah, got hold of the remains andone chom chom chomp Dr Fitzpatrick 20 tri two I mean. 15:03.88 Alex I mean am I wrong. 15:07.90 Cpt Granarius Am I wrong? No no yeah I less exciting but still, you know we got talk about Grass Snake Always a last example, always offending the wildlife First he was the fish. 15:09.42 Alex Finally, we're going to go to maybe less exciting but still, you know we got to talk about the grass snake as our last example. 15:26.33 Cpt Granarius Then it was the squirrels Now you're insulting the humble grassnakenathericksnarics. Um, they're just like okay. 15:32.40 Alex It's they're just like okay we just talked about carcodiles and like I love Snakes I Love Snakes so much but they're not necessarily as exciting as a Nile crocodile right. 15:42.23 Cpt Granarius You unless you're a snake Enthusiast I have a snake Enthusiast not enthusiastic enough anyway. Grass Snake um the humble Grass snake. 15:43.21 Alex I Have a snake enthusiast. 15:49.26 Alex No I'm realistic. 15:57.90 Cpt Granarius Is found throughout Europe and Northern Africa where is also known as the ring snake or the water snake now. Both of those nicknames kind of make sense. Um, in fact, you know the grass snake as a characteristic like white yellowish collar behind its head hence ring snake. And it does enjoy living and just swoshing around I don't know what but what kind of movement verb would you use to describe a snake movement. Do they swoosh mo I mean these ones arent moist because they do like to live near water. Ah so they're slightly moist reptile. 16:27.21 Alex Moist. 16:36.52 Cpt Granarius Um, yes, grass snakes of um, cultural significance and amongst many Northern European cultures. They particularly prominent in Latvian and Lithuanian folk tales just to mention a few. 16:49.80 Cpt Granarius Now excavations are several later prehistoric sites across the Netherlands ah 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. But. 16:58.30 Alex Is. 17:08.72 Cpt Granarius The fact that we seem to be missing the skulls could also suggest the use of grass snakes skin and meat so like and 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 chop. Um, 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. Yeah, it. 17:34.33 Alex 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 ah, 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 you know there's the the so many bones so many fragile bones in a fish head. It's also like well it could also be that the you know the so survivor viability rate isn't that high so a bit difficult in this case to kind of make those in you know those clear cut interpretations but it is really. And cool that they found the eggs of Crass snakes that must have been exciting to be honest. 18:31.53 Cpt Granarius Its been one heck of a waterlogged site. Yeah Wow The eggs well but what? what? what we moll over them. Humble Grass Snakes eggs. Um, guess we'll take a break. 18:33.32 Alex Yeah Wow I know. 18:45.53 Alex Queen of Segways Simona this up down film. 18:47.66 archpodnet I Yeah but actually if you're hitting it out of the park. Absolutely on point. Yeah, another solid win for simona. 18:55.82 Cpt Granarius I Another solid win for samona.