Bones from 46–54 Fishergate

by TP O’Connor

The 1985–6 excavations at 46-54 Fishergate provided the first opportunity nationally to excavate to modem standards a house of the Gilbertine order, and the first opportunity in York to investigate a substantial area of Anglian occupation of the 8th–9th centuries AD. It was, therefore, one of the most important excavations to have been undertaken in the city to date.

An intensive programme of sieving of deposits was carried out in order to maximise the recovery of bone fragments and artefacts. The report which follows is an account of material from a cultural context somewhat different from the straightforward urban origins of the bone assemblages reported in AY 15/1–3. The site lay a little outside the centres of the Roman and medieval cities, and the Anglian occupation is thought to relate to a trading settlement or wic. Similarly, the Gilbertine priory lay in a suburban, riverside location, and the extent of its economic integration with the medieval city is far from clear.

The bones were only a small part of a major programme of post-excavation research. Apart from accounts of the archaeology of the site, note should also be made of a detailed study of human skeletons from a series of cemeteries, and of important series of artefacts; pottery, small fmds including a major corpus of medieval window glass, and coins. Biological remains other than bones were scarce, and are reported in brief in the appropriate archaeology fascicules. This report does not stand alone, therefore, and the analysis which is reported here is one part of an integration of results and interpretation from many other lines of evidence, the whole giving a coherent overall picture of a complex and fascinating site.

Info: 98pp, 14 illustrations
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