Bear baiting was a popular form of entertainment in Shakespearean England that was staged across the country but formalised in the Early Modern entertainment hub on Bankside, London. Here, the authors bring together zooarchaeological, stable isotope and archival evidence in the examination of faunal assemblages from nine archaeological sites on Bankside to elucidate characteristics indicative of bear baiting. In doing so, they present criteria for identifying bear-baiting assemblages in the archaeological record of England and beyond, even in the absence of associated documentary evidence.

This article offers unprecedented insight into the domestic movements of early modern commercial entertainment producers based on fresh archival and archaeological details about bears and bearwards, centring on a surviving two-month journey record. We plot roadways taken and the lengths and times via GIS mapping, offering a fresh spatial humanities methodology to explore commercial life on the road and its consequences. Together, these sources and our interdisciplinary methodologies (uniting archival research and cultural history with spatial humanities, GIS mapping, and zooarchaeology) illuminate what it meant more broadly to travel on foot in early modern England.

The analysis of 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios in human and nonhuman tooth enamel is used worldwide for archaeological and forensic purposes to establish if an individual is likely to have grown up in the area from which their remains were excavated. The English Peak District has produced an unusually high proportion of archaeological humans who, based on Sr isotope ratios, appear to have come from elsewhere. We have used modern plant samples from the Peak to show that the current understanding of Sr isotope ratios for this area is incomplete – we found many plant samples growing on gritstone sediments had higher Sr values than would be expected based on the current literature. In addition we demonstrated that the taxonomy of the plant does not appear to affect the Sr isotope values (we also found that mycorrhizal type did not determine Sr isotope values in these plants), rather it is the substrate on which it is growing that is important. In terms of human movement, our work suggests it is likely that many archaeological individuals found in the Peak District are indeed local, rather than migrants. It is also possible that the expansion of blanket peat in the Peak has over time reduced the amount of Sr entering the food chain from mineral soils, reducing the radiogenic Sr isotope values in more recent teeth. While our case study is the Peak District, our findings have implications for anomalously high archaeological 87Sr/86Sr isotope values in other upland regions with similar geologies and blanket peats.

Mammals come in many shapes and sizes, from blue whales to pygmy shrews, and are able to live in a wide variety of habitats, from the polar regions to arid deserts and the open oceans. Archaeological and fossil mammal remains are usually found as either bones or teeth. Mammalian fossils are often divided into two groups – microfauna or small mammals and macrofauna or large mammals. The study of taphonomy has traditionally been focused on measuring and determining the loss of biological material as it becomes incorporated into the geological record. Taphonomic analyses can provide an important source of palaeoenvironmental information. The first point when considering palaeoenvironmental reconstruction from faunal remains is the identification of those remains to a taxonomic group. Autecology is the study of a single species, which can then be used to reconstruct environments. Body size is arguably the most important ecological attribute of any mammal.

Examination of the feeding habits of mammalian species such as the African elephant ( Loxodonta africana ) that range over large seasonally dynamic areas is exceptionally challenging using field-based methods alone. Although much is known of their feeding preferences from field studies, conclusions, especially in relation to differing habits in wet and dry seasons, are often contradictory. Here, two remote approaches, stable carbon isotope analysis and remote sensing, were combined to investigate dietary changes in relation to tree and grass abundances to better understand elephant dietary choice in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. A composited pair of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper satellite images characterising flushed and senescent vegetation states, typical of wet and dry seasons respectively, were used to generate land-cover maps focusing on the forest to grassland gradient. Stable carbon isotope analysis of elephant faecal samples identified the proportion of C 3 (typically browse)/C 4 (typically grass) in elephant diets in the 1–2 days prior to faecal deposition. The proportion of surrounding C 4 land-cover was extracted using concentric buffers centred on faecal sample locations, and related to the faecal %C 4 content. Results indicate that elephants consume C 4 vegetation in proportion to its availability in the surrounding area during the dry season, but during the rainy season there was less of a relationship between C 4 intake and availability, as elephants targeted grasses in these periods. This study illustrates the utility of coupling isotope and cost-free remote sensing data to conduct complementary landscape analysis at highly-detailed, biologically meaningful resolutions, offering an improved ability to monitor animal behavioural patterns at broad geographical scales. This is increasingly important due to potential impacts of climate change and woody encroachment on broad-scale landscape habitat composition, allowing the tracking of shifts in species utilisation of these changing landscapes in a way impractical using field based methods alone.

ABSTRACTThe scarcity of Romano-British human remains from north-west England has hindered understanding of burial practice in this region. Here, we report on the excavation of human and non-human animal remains1and material culture from Dog Hole Cave, Haverbrack. Foetal and neonatal infants had been interred alongside a horse burial and puppies, lambs, calves and piglets in the very latest Iron Age to early Romano-British period, while the mid- to late Roman period is characterised by burials of older individuals with copper-alloy jewellery and beads. This material culture is more characteristic of urban sites, while isotope analysis indicates that the later individuals were largely from the local area. We discuss these results in terms of burial ritual in Cumbria and rural acculturation. Supplementary material is available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X20000136), and contains further information about the site and excavations, small finds, zooarchaeology, human osteology, site taphonomy, the palaeoenvironment, isotope methods and analysis, and finds listed in Benson and Bland 1963.

14 The palaeoanthropological literature contains numerous examples of putative home range sizes 15 associated with various hominin species. However, the resolution of the palaeoenvironmental 16 record seldom allows the quantitative analysis of the effects of different range sizes on access to 17 different habitat types and resources. Here we develop a novel approach of using remote sensing 18 data of modern African vegetation as an analogue for past hominin habitats, and examine the 19 effects of different range sizes on the access to habitat types. We show that when the location of the 20 ranges are chosen randomly then the number of habitat types within a range is surprisingly scale 21 invariant – that is increasing range size makes only a very modest difference to the number of 22 habitat types within an estimated hominin home range. However, when transects are placed 23 perpendicular to a water body (such as a lake or river bank) it is apparent that the greatest number 24 of habitats are seen near water bodies, and decline with distance. This suggests additional 25 advantages to living by freshwater other than the obvious one associated with access to drinking 26 water, and may indicate that the finding of hominins in fluvial and lacustrine deposits is not simply a 27 taphonomic issue. 28

Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST); DST-NRF Centre of Excellence, Palaeosciences (CoE-Pal); the South African National Research Foundation; and the University of the Witwatersrand Postgraduate Merit Award.

ContextThe heterogeneous mosaic nature of African savannah vegetation is a key aspect of its ecology. This study evaluates mosaic distributions and characteristics across sub-Saharan Africa, investigating the environmental drivers of mosaic formation.ObjectivesThis study was designed to determine: (1) on a continental scale, how frequent are mosaics in savannahs? and (2) what are the key environmental drivers in the formation of mosaics?MethodsLandsat ETM+ satellite imagery was used to generate land-cover maps for 39 sample areas across sub-Saharan Africa. The spatial complexity of land-cover mosaics at 4628 savannah sub-sites was quantified, and modelled using random forests to identify the relative importance of environmental variables driving mosaic presence.ResultsOnly six sub-sites constituted a single land-cover class, illustrating that mosaic habitats are abundant at the scale analysed (19.6km(2)), although mosaic characteristics varied considerably. Results indicate precipitation is most important in influencing mosaic complexity, followed by evapotranspiration, temperature, lithology and distance to rivers. Fire and ecosystem engineer presence are of lesser importance at this study scale.ConclusionsMosaics are ubiquitous in the African savannahs studied, their presence influenced by multiple environmental drivers, with water being key. The lower importance of fire and large mammal disturbance is likely resulting from these highly individualistic site-based process varying between sites, resulting in no single, coherent, across-Africa disturbance signal, and/or lack of detail in available data at this scale. Therefore, large-scale determinants of savannah mosaics appear climate-driven. Under future global warming scenarios, African savannahs are likely to become more homogenous.

The brown bear Ursus arctos was Holocene Britain's largest carnivoran and has appeared in recent rewilding discussions. Despite widespread interest, we know very little about the species in Holocene Britain, as few studies have been undertaken. This paper draws together information on the brown bear to examine its presence and extinction through evaluation of the archaeological and palaeontological evidence. Data were collected from published literature and museum catalogues. Information on the chronological date of archaeological sites, the number of bear specimens, and the body parts present were particularly sought. A total of 85 sites were identified, 57 are well-dated, 25 are of uncertain date but are likely to be Holocene, and three have uncertain species identifications. Very few specimens from non-anthropogenic sites (e.g. fens and caves) are well-dated, skewing the data towards anthropogenic sites such as settlements and graves. Analysis of body part representation shows that the bear bones found in the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and most of the early medieval period are largely phalanges or metapodials, which are likely to be derived from skins. Other body parts are present during the Romano-British, medieval, and post-medieval period, indicating that live bears were present and were probably imported for entertainment. It seems that the brown bear was rare in Britain throughout the Holocene, and, based on current evidence, two extinction scenarios can be put forward: extinction in the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age, or extinction in the early medieval period.

Within the past 80 years, the Kromdraai site in South Africa has provided a diverse Early Pleistocene fauna (notably bovids, carnivores, primates, large rodents, birds, proboscidea). Since 2014, the Kromdraai bone accumulation has been the focus of intensive fieldwork that demonstrated that the site is much larger than previously recognised. In the present taphonomic study of a new and large faunal sample including more than 2400 remains, stratigraphically controlled, we aim to test previous interpretations of the Kromdraai assemblage as representing a death trap or a carnivore lair. In particular, we aim to discuss the relationships between faunal communities in the context of carnivores, either predator-prey or predator-predator interactions. We investigate the relative abundance of anatomical elements and their fragmentation, the mortality profiles and tooth-mark frequency. We conclude that carnivores (particularly felids and hyenids) played a major role in the accumulation of fauna from Member 2, which (thus far) is the oldest depositional period investigated at Kromdraai. However, the high species diversity suggests that the secondary predators (scavengers) could have modified the bone deposit produced by the primary predators. The presence of hominin remains is also questioned. Our results shed new light on the palaeoecology of the Kromdraai Member 2 hominins, in terms of opportunistic predators and/or prey of large carnivores.

The Cooper's Cave System has produced a diverse fossil assemblage including the remains of Paranthropus robustus Broom, 1938, and early Homo Linnaeus, 1758. The majority of the faunal remains come from Cooper's D, which dates to c. 1.5-1.4 Ma. Here we describe 158 craniodental and postcranial felid fossils from Cooper's D, including Dinofelis cf. aronoki. These fossils indicate the presence of four large felid genera at Cooper's D: Dinofelis Zdansky, 1924, Megantereon Croizet & Jobert, 1828, Panthera Oken, 1816 (two species) and Acinonyx Brookes, 1828, plus two smaller taxa: Caracal Gray, 1843 and Felis Linnaeus, 1758. This assemblage may mark the first appearance of the modern cheetah Acinonyx jubatus (Schreber, 1775) in Africa, as well the first occurrence of the East African species Dinofelis cf. aronoki in southern Africa. This taxon appears intermediate in features between Dinofelis barlowi (Broom, 1937) and Dinofelis piveteaui (Ewer, 1955). We compare the Cooper's D felid assemblage with those from other sites in the Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, and discuss several scenarios for the evolution of the genus Dinofelis in eastern and southern Africa.

Changes in the extent of woody vegetation represent a major conservation question in many savannah systems around the globe. To address the problem of the current lack of broad-scale cost-effective tools for land cover monitoring in complex savannah environments, we use a multi-scale approach to quantifying vegetation change in Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa. We test whether medium spatial resolution satellite data (Landsat, existing back to the 1970s), which have pixel sizes larger than typical vegetation patches, can nevertheless capture the thematic detail required to detect woody encroachment in savannahs. We quantify vegetation change over a 13-year period in KNP, examine the changes that have occurred, assess the drivers of these changes, and compare appropriate remote sensing data sources for monitoring change. We generate land cover maps for three areas of southern KNP using very high resolution (VHR) and medium resolution satellite sensor imagery from February 2001 to 2014. Considerable land cover change has occurred, with large increases in shrubs replacing both trees and grassland. Examination of exclosure areas and potential environmental driver data suggests two mechanisms: elephant herbivory removing trees and at least one separate mechanism responsible for conversion of grassland to shrubs, theorised to be increasing atmospheric CO2. Thus, the combination of these mechanisms causes the novel two-directional shrub encroachment that we observe (tree loss and grassland conversion). Multi-scale comparison of classifications indicates that although spatial detail is lost when using medium resolution rather than VHR imagery for land cover classification (e.g., Landsat imagery cannot readily distinguish between tree and shrub classes, while VHR imagery can), the thematic detail contained within both VHR and medium resolution classifications is remarkably congruent. This suggests that medium resolution imagery contains sufficient thematic information for most broad-scale land cover monitoring requirements in heterogeneous savannahs, while having the benefits of being cost-free and providing a longer historical archive of data than VHR sources. We conclude that monitoring of broad-scale land cover change using remote sensing has considerable potential as a cost-effective tool for both better informing land management practitioners, and for monitoring the future landscape-scale impacts of management policies in savannahs.

Fungi are a common part of modern human diets, but are rarely discussed in an archaeological context. Power et al. (2015) published data on bolete spores in human tooth calculus, suggesting that Upper Palaeolithic peoples ate mushrooms. Here we briefly consider the likelihood of mushroom consumption in the past, and examine whether or not stable isotopes may provide a way of seeing this in archaeological populations. We also consider the complexities of fungal stable isotopes using our own data and that from the literature. We conclude that fungi are highly variable isotopically, and are an additional dietary factor that should be considered when trying to interpret 'terrestrial' carbon isotope signatures combined with relatively high nitrogen isotope values in humans and other animals. Substantial mushroom ingestion could, in some cases, result in isotope values that may be interpreted as considerable meat consumption. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The palaeoanthropological literature contains numerous examples of putative home range sizes associated with various hominin species. However, the resolution of the palaeoenvironmental record seldom allows the quantitative analysis of the effects of different range sizes on access to different habitat types and resources. Here we develop a novel approach of using remote sensing data of modern African vegetation as an analogue for past hominin habitats, and examine the effects of different range sizes on the access to habitat types. We show that when the location of the ranges are chosen randomly then the number of habitat types within a range is surprisingly scale invariant – that is increasing range size makes only a very modest difference to the number of habitat types within an estimated hominin home range. However, when transects are placed perpendicular to a water body (such as a lake or river bank) it is apparent that the greatest number of habitats are seen near water bodies, and decline with distance. This suggests additional advantages to living by freshwater other than the obvious one associated with access to drinking water, and may indicate that the finding of hominins in fluvial and lacustrine deposits is not simply a taphonomic issue. Comparison of the distribution of modern canopy cover with the fraction of woody canopy cover (ƒwc) calculated from fossil pedogenic carbonate stable isotopes also suggests that closed woodland may be under-represented at fossil sites.

The habitats preferred by hominins and other species are an important theme in palaeoanthropology, and the 'mosaic habitat' (also referred to as habitat heterogeneity) has been a central concept in this regard for the last four decades. Here we explore the development of this concept – loosely defined as a range of different habitat types, such as woodlands, riverine forest and savannah within a limited spatial area – in studies of human evolution over the last 60 years or so. We outline the key developments that took place before and around the time when the term 'mosaic' came to wider palaeoanthropological attention. To achieve this, we used an analysis of the published literature, a study of illustrations of hominin evolution from 1925 onwards and an email survey of senior researchers in palaeoanthropology and related fields. We found that the term 'mosaic' starts to be applied in palaeoanthropological thinking during the 1970s due to the work of a number of researchers, including Karl Butzer and Glynn Isaac, with the earliest usage we have found of 'mosaic' in specific reference to hominin habitats being by Adriaan Kortlandt (1972). While we observe a steady increase in the numbers of publications reporting mosaic palaeohabitats, in keeping with the growing interest and specialisation in various methods of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, we also note that there is a lack of critical studies that define this habitat, or examine the temporal and spatial scales associated with it. The general consensus within the field is that the concept now requires more detailed definition and study to evaluate its role in human evolution.Keywords: habitat heterogeneitytime-averaginghabitat variabilitySavannah Hypothesispalaeoenvironmental reconstructionpalaeoecology. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe would like to thank numerous colleagues who shared their ideas, pictures, recollections and insights about the mosaic habitat concept, including Stanley Ambrose, Peter Andrews, René Bobe, Susan Cachel, John de Vos, Clive Gamble, Alan Gentry, Colin Groves, Ralph Holloway, Don Johanson, Clifford Jolly, Jonathan Kingdon, Owen Lovejoy, Bill McGrew, James Ohman, John Olsen, David Pilbeam, Peter Schmid, Jeanne Sept, Chris Stringer, Ian Tattersall, Francis Thackeray, Tim White, Edward O. Wilson, Milford Wolpoff and Richard Wrangham. Goran Strkalj made useful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We would like to thank the Editor Margaret Avery and two anonymous referees for their comments which have improved this manuscript.Notes1. Mayr (Citation1982) records that the term 'mosaic evolution' was coined in 1954 by Gavin de Beer with reference to the genus Archaeopteryx (although the ideas had been around for many years before that) and it was being used in the palaeoanthropological literature by the late 1950s (e.g. Le Gros Clark, Citation1959b) in the context of a mix of 'advanced' and 'primitive' features in the same fossil. Thus, the use of 'mosaic evolution' predates the use of 'mosaic habitat' by some decades.Additional informationFundingThis work is part of the Quantifying the Mosaic project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust [grant number RPG-2012-472] and we thank them for their support.