Book Review

BRYONY COLES. Beavers in Britain's Past (WARP Occasional Paper 19). x+242 pages, 158 illustrations. 2006. Oxford: Oxbow; 978-1-84217-2261 paperback £40.

Review by PAUL DAVIES
Quaternary Research Unit, Bath Spa University, UK

Antiquity 81 no. 313 September 2007

Demographic change, settlement geography and archaeology, analysis of domestic, industrial and transportation structures, the nature of environmental exploitation and impact, sociality, and material culture. Added to this there is plenty about humans too.

In common with many others I was aware of Bryony Coles' interest in beavers in British prehistory, but less aware of the breadth and depth of the research being undertaken. This volume brings together more than 20 years' thinking, research and fieldwork on the topic and provides a wonderful range of material on the European beaver (Castor fiber). The approach is also refreshingly novel, in that it is initially largely centred around beavers as agents in the landscape and how their activities may have overlapped with, or even exploited, human activities, rather than more narrowly upon beavers as a resource (whether for food, ornamentation or fur) used by humans, although the latter is also more than adequately covered in later chapters.

The first chapter consists of an overview of the ecology of the European beaver and its distribution through the Quaternary. While relatively short, and based largely on synthesising other sources, I suspect that this chapter in itself this will become a standard reference. It also provides the first indication that the widespread belief that Castor fiber is not a dam-builder, unlike its North American cousin (Castor canadensis) is mistaken. On this matter Chapters 2 and 3 provide more than enough evidence. With the presentation of results from fieldwork and survey of modern populations in France, quite wonderful insights into the extent of beaver activity on stream systems, and the influence of that activity on the wider landscape, emerge. At Keriou (Brittany), for example, a single beaver territory (2 adults, maybe some sub-adults) contained 4 lodges and 14 dams. There were associated ponds and flooded areas, dam by-pass channels, underground beaver tunnels, and overground beaver-built canals. All this in only a 750m stretch of river and in the 30 years since beaver were re-introduced to the area. In south-eastern France on the River Drôme a 900m stretch contained 30 dams and ponded back around 30 times more water than would be expected under a normal flow regime, this achieved in only 15 years. The archaeological style distribution mapping of beaver structures, the planning of representative structures and of channel forms within beaver territories impress as much as the factual content of the text and provide an important baseline for the potential archaeological record of beaver activity covered in Chapter 3.

Chapter 4 focuses upon the human exploitation of beaver resources or beaver modified landscapes. Here it is evident that beavers were not just a potential source of food or fur but also that their territories could in addition have provided human populations with readily available kindling, firewood, 'coppice' poles and ponds stocked with fish and waterfowl. Dams could also have been used as 'natural' crossing points. An interesting observation is that beaver 'canals' just might have inspired later human engineering works on floodplains.

Chapters 5 to 12 look at the possible archaeological evidence of beaver activity in the British Isles over the last 15 000 years. Using the modern structures and plans as a guide, the case for features at sites such as at Thatcham (Mesolithic) and West Cotton (Neolithic) being possible beaver structures is carefully and fully explored. It is apparent that from the Neolithic to the Iron Age the evidence for beaver shifts away from beaver 'structures' and toward beaver remains, particularly their striking incisors, as tools or ornamentation. Throughout the possibility that archaeological excavation might have created a bias is fully acknowledged. Interestingly evidence for beaver is scant during the Roman period. The possibility is raised that this may actually be due to the relative invisibility of beaver at that time, rather than actual decline. As is also discussed elsewhere in the volume beaver are adaptive, and will only build lodges and dams when stream or river conditions require deepening of water.

For the historic period (Chapters 10-12) beaver place names are considered, as are documentary and other sources. In terms of human perception beaver emerges here as first a source of high status food and felt and later as a pest, for which a bounty would be paid. The persecution was effective, leading to the last recorded case of a bounty paid for a beaver pelt in Yorkshire in the year 1789, a final record substantially later than that generally accepted as the extinction date for beaver in Britain.

This review can only cover so much ground; there is much, much more of value in this book. The text, plans and photographs combine to produce an impressive volume. We need similar books for other mammals too.