Apparently some Lynx (Lynx Lynx) bone remains found
in the limestone caves of north Yorkshire have now been
C-14 dated to the Roman era.

As experts seem to have disagreed over precisely when
the "original" extinction took place and until now had it
pegged as either 10 000 years hence, at the recession
of European ice-sheets, or 4 000 years ago when things
got slightly more chilly and damp, I was wondering what,
if any, evidence of Lynx those Time Team digs focussed
on known Roman sites turned disused, turned up.

Like many other regions characterised by moorland scars
and fells the part of Yorkshire I'm in at the mo' has a roughly
perennial press report of some kind of wild cat roaming the
moors surrounding. There has not yet been one this year.

Unlike some other regions, however, parts of round here
have seen continuous settlement since Roman times.
By which I mean the local rag has reported that not only
did the Romans build here but it's been settled ever since,
and continuously at that.

No abandonment, nor move to a site a mile or so away,
nor reuse of any geographical advantages by subsequent
north-western European migrants after decades of lying
fallow.

Now either there is going to be a record of Lynx being here
between 10 000 and 4 000 years ago, or, it's possible that
a sample previously dated as being 4 000 years old was
indeterminate to start with and was fixed where it was in all
possibility by reliance on a correlation with the same climate-
change it appears to have ended up being used as evidence
of.

As such it would appear that one explanation for the presence
of the Lynx between Roman times (250CE) and about 950 CE
if not the Middle Ages is its reintroduction to the islands by the
Romans.

Given that Time Team digs tend to go for the known spectacle
of televisual satisfaction - they are after enough to construct an
electronic artist's impression - and that this format works, it
might be a nice filler for some of the slower-moving special
editions (E.g. the Bank Holiday mainly-live-to-air "Big Dig")
if they had retrospective tie-ins collating such new hypotheses,
particularly those of such a general nature as this, with their
existing archaeological finds--regardless of whether or not it is
Boudicca buried by a bus stop in Bromsgrove.

G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2007 SIPSTON
--