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nitpicker

(7,153 posts)
Thu Apr 18, 2019, 03:37 AM Apr 2019

Evidence of rabbits in UK in Roman times, say academics

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47963324

Evidence of rabbits in UK in Roman times, say academics

34 minutes ago

Rabbits have been hopping around the UK since the Roman period, experts have been able to scientifically prove for the first time.

Tests on a rabbit bone, found at Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex, have shown the animal was alive in 1AD.

The 1.6in (4cm) piece of a tibia bone was found in 1964 but it remained in a box until 2017, when a zooarchaeologist realised that it came from a rabbit.

Academics believe the animal could have been kept as an exotic pet.

Analysis, including radiocarbon dating, was carried out by researchers at the universities of Exeter, Oxford and Leicester.
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Evidence of rabbits in UK in Roman times, say academics (Original Post) nitpicker Apr 2019 OP
The island didn't have rabbits before then? PoindexterOglethorpe Apr 2019 #1

PoindexterOglethorpe

(26,727 posts)
1. The island didn't have rabbits before then?
Thu Apr 18, 2019, 10:15 AM
Apr 2019

Huh! I'd have thought they'd have had them for thousands of years, since long before the Channel flooded after the end of the last ice age.

Learn something knew.

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