A team of archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) has uncovered keratin ‘teeth’ of lamprey at a site near Mansion House station in London, the United Kingdom.
Lamprey in Sala Maremagnum of Aquarium Finisterrae in Corunna, Galicia, Spain. Image credit: Drow Male / CC BY-SA 3.0.
Lampreys are an extremely primitive lineage of jawless fish.
Existing for over 360 million years, they are known as living fossils due to their many evolutionally conserved features.
They are found in temperate regions around the world, except Africa, and live mostly in coastal and fresh waters, although some species travel significant distances in the open ocean.
“It may be hard to stomach, but lampreys were a popular delicacy among the nobility in medieval Britain — and continue to be eaten in Spain and Finland,” said MOLA senior archaeozoologist Alan Pipe and colleagues.
“The story goes that Henry I had such a hankering for this scary snack that his doctor deemed the cause of his untimely death ‘a surfeit of lampreys’ — though this may be a fanciful embellishment on the part of Henry of Huntingdon, his chronicler.”
“Even recently, they have been popular with the royals: a lamprey pie was made for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.”
Lamprey keratin teeth recovered during excavations near Mansion House station in London, UK. Image credit: MOLA.
As lampreys have no bones or jaws, they leave little trace in the archaeological record.
They are only known from two other sites in the United Kingdom (Coppergate in York and Dundrennan Abbey in Scotland).
Even their ‘teeth’ are unlikely to be preserved, since they are made of keratin, which is much softer than enamel or dentine, making the discovery all the more remarkable.
“Almost everything we know about the popularity of lampreys in medieval England comes from historical accounts,” Dr. Pipe said.
“It is incredibly exciting, after 33 years of studying animal remains, to finally identify traces of the elusive lamprey at the heart of the historic City of London, preserved in the water-logged ground near the Thames.”
Source link: https://www.sci.news/archaeology/lamprey-medieval-delicacy-06576.html
