16
ON THE REMAINS OF VERTEBRATE
ANIMALS FOUND IN THE MIDDENS OF
RAYLEIGH CASTLE, ESSEX.
By MARTIN C. HINTON.
[Read 28th October 1911].
DURING the past two years, the site of the Castle of
Rayleigh—the most striking earthwork existing in Essex
and one of the few English strongholds mentioned in Domesday
—has undergone extensive excavation at the hands of the owner,
Mr. E. B. Francis, of Rayleigh, and an extended account of his
discoveries, which are of considerable interest, has appeared.1
Among other deposits uncovered were extensive middens,
containing large numbers of oyster-shells, many bones of Verte-
brates, and great quantities of rubbish. Through the kindness
of Mr. Francis the Vertebrate remains were placed in my hands
for examination and report. The results are of interest, I think,
as tending to throw light on the fauna of Essex from the end
of the Eleventh Century to the beginning of the Thirteenth—
the period during which Rayleigh Castle was in active occupa-
tion, it having been destroyed, apparently, by the middle of the
last-named century.
The following are the details elicited by me in regard to each
species of which any remains were noted.2
1. Erinaceus europaeus (Hedgehog).—Represented only
by some spines.
2. Oryctolagus cuniculus (Rabbit).—Two right rami of
the lower jaw, a humerus, tibia, and some femora of the Rabbit
evidently, from their condition, belong to the midden and
are not the remains of animals that have burrowed in in
later times. This animal inhabited Britain long ago, in the
early part of the Pleistocene period, and then, from some cause
or other, it apparently became extinct here before late Pleis-
tocene times. The date of its reappearance is uncertain. Rogers
inferred,3 from the high prices paid for Rabbits in the Middle
Ages, that they "were introduced into England in or just before
the thirteenth century." As Rolleston has pointed out,4 they
1 Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society (n.s., xii., pp. 147—185).
2 A very brief report on the remains, by myself, was appended to the article above
mentioned
3 History of Agriculture and Prices in England, i., p. 341.
4 Scientific Papers and Addresses, i., p. 335 (reprinted in 1884 from his "Appendix on the
Prehistoric Fauna of Neolithic Times," in Greenwell's British Barrows, 1877).