NEW EVIDENCE: IRON AGE FUR FARMS

[Guest]

Found this googling for early evidence of animlas being specifically reared for fur.

As reindeer is the oldest domesticated animal, I was looking for that....but interesting to see how fox was "farmed" in the IRON AGE

 

 

Iron Age Scots fur farm clue

 

(Daily Record, 27 November 2006, via Stone Pages ArchaeoNews, 3 December 2006) -- Iron Age man reared foxes to make fur-trimmed clothes, archaeologists believe. Experts say the pelts were used to make sought-after fur-trimmed coats, loin cloths and blankets. Researchers at York University found that foxes flourished on Orkney (Scotland) during the late Iron Age. But there were none on the Outer Hebrides or Shetland, suggesting they were introduced to Orkney. The study concluded that foxes were brought to the islands because their fur was valued more highly than that of indigenous species. However, the creatures disappeared soon after the Vikings invaded about 800 CE. The discovery was made by studying animal bones at ancient settlement sites. Badgers are also believed to have been imported as "trophies" by the islanders. The authors say this could be evidence of the earliest example of fur farming in Scotland. Co-author Eva Fairnell said: "Humans must have been taking foxes to Orkney. Fox fur had a high prestige--it may have been an accessory, some sort of fashionable trim."

 

This timeline thing is real important. It will really show PETA etc to be completely warped; it will also show that despite 3000 yeas of fox being killed by man in the british isles for fur or sport, they are still here. That is what is known as incentive conservation.

[lynxette]

Wow, this is a really neat find Touch of Sable. Great input for the timeline we are trying to construct. I for one had no idea that such a thing was happening, but it makes complete sense when one thinks about it. Man has always, within the limits of the current technology, found ingenious ways of supplying his needs, and this is certainly a sort of proof of that.

[Guest]

Yes this is hugely important on the timeleine too. We are talking about fur farming of FOX a thousand years before Christ. kind of makes PETA's claim thhta foxes on fur farms are wild animals unsuitable for doemstication doesn't it? This is NEW evidence folks; and again shows man cconserving animlas by using them.

 

Hope I have given you some interesting new evidence for your timeline Lynxette. Will add new pegs as I find them.

 

As far as I know NOBODY has done any significant work on the role of fur in human history; especially not with all this new evidence coming to light.

And it is producing a picture of man as hunter/animal user as a natural incentive conservatioist, not the savage he has been portrayed as massacring animals to extinction at every turn.

[lynxette]

Yes Touch of Sable, you certainly have, but it is hopefully not just my timeline...I am going to need help from people like yoursself to complete such a biiiig project.