The origin of the Rabbit

[TOMO 26,156]

JUST FOR ALL YOU NONE BELIVERS

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4439339.stm

[comanche 2,991]

JUST FOR ALL YOU NONE BELIVERS

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4439339.stm

 

Seems likely that the odd bunny would have made it here with the Romans as they were a favourite dish of the rich (Caesar himself loved them apparently) but it might well have arrived in a pickled or preserved state rather than as meat on the hoof . The signs of butchery said to be apparent on the rabbit in the BBC article indicate that it is not the remains of an animal that has burrowed to the "Roman archaological level" so it could well be a genuine find ..However, considering the amount of digging done on Romano British sites one would have expected more rabbit remains to have turned up if they had been imported ,alive or dead ,in any numbers. There is no mention in Anglo Saxon Chronicles of rabbits and Saxon nobility like the Normans were great hunters and falconers . Rabbits would certainly have appeared in writing and art of the period . The Saxon scribe Bede has been pictured with dead rabbits and this has been used to argue an indication of rabbits being present in Britain in Saxon times but the image was created by fancyfull Norman artists many years later .

 

The remains of pheasants found in Roman middens and used as the foundation of evidence that the Romans introduced the bird turned -out to be those of chickens (source O Rackham ) but who knows about this new rabbit discovery .Interesting

[DTH 0]

its now known its not a fact about the normans , like i said on the other thread they have found rabbit bones at a recent dig on roman ruins. so if they were brought hear it was the romans. personly i like to think they were already here , but there was just no evidence of them.

 

i thought there was a land bridge as recent as about 5000 years ago, when where the channel was an area of swamp and marsh land.

The reason some people query whether Romans introduced them is that the Romans were here 4000 years before any evidence of rabbite were found so the quetion is why did they wait so long to introduce them?

 

 

zig zag i think you are confused, romans were here from around 1ad till 3ad , about 2000 year ago, not 4000 , we were all cavemen 4000 year ago. in fact one or two on here still are

 

but like i said it was in the news a year or so ago that rabbit remains were found at a roman dig , confirming they were here when the romans were. weather they brought them in my opinion is still open to speculation. but the sheer fact they were here , tells us that the normans wernt the ones to bring them.

 

Sorry Tomo but dont think we were caveman around 2000Bc unless you are just referring to the type of habitation, in which case we still have caveman. if you mean early humans you are way out.

[TOMO 26,156]

was siad slightly toungue in cheak mate hence the joke about some still being cavemen, i think its around 20.000 years ago since the cavemen , but we were quite primative here in the uk 4000 year ago.

[dwalin 0]

wow a post that as two of my fave things

1, the hunting of rabbits

2, two history.

personally i think that some came over with the Romans if not before then to be eaten as they were easy to transport and kill

quick and easy to cook

but most of all they only got bigger and didn't deteriorate like other foods they brought.

and its not against the bounds of reason to imagine some getting free. and the keeper getting beating for it.