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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Archaeological evidence shows that the first brown hares and chickens to arrive in Britain were buried with care and intact. There is no signs of butchery on bones examined and the ongoing research suggests the two animals were not imported for people to eat.
Work by experts from the Universities of Exeter, Leicester and Oxford is revealing when brown hares, rabbits and chickens were introduced to Britain, and how they became incorporated into modern Easter traditions.
The team has previously analyzed the earliest rabbit bone to be found in the country, which dates to the first/second century AD. New radiocarbon dates for bones found on sites in Hampshire (Houghton Down, Weston Down, Winnal Down and Winklebury Camp) and Hertfordshire (Blackhorse Road) suggests brown hares and chickens were introduced to Britain even earlier, arriving simultaneously in the Iron Age, between the fifth and the third century BC.
The discovery of buried skeletons fits historical evidence that neither animal was eaten until the Roman period, which began hundreds of years later.
Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico says: "The Britons consider it contrary to divine law to eat the hare, the chicken, or the goose. They raise these, however, for their own amusement and pleasure." The third-century AD author, Dio Cassius reported that Queen Boudicca released a live hare in order to divine the outcome of her battle with the Romans, calling upon the goddess Andraste to secure their victory.
During the Roman period, both species were farmed and eaten, and rabbits were also introduced. But in AD 410 the Roman Empire withdrew from Britain causing economic collapse. Rabbits became locally extinct, while populations of chickens and brown hares crashed. Due to their scarcity at this time, chickens and hares regained their special status.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Saturday April 18 2020, @08:30AM
> in AD 410 the Roman Empire withdrew from Britain causing economic collapse
the well known SPQREXITVS
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by gtomorrow on Saturday April 18 2020, @09:11AM (2 children)
I would have thought they were treated like 'sex toys'.
Ahh, maybe that's why they were buried with such care...the prolonged emotional attachment.
I kid! I kid! Keep calm and carry on developing your herd immunity, mein Britischers!
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday April 19 2020, @01:26AM (1 child)
"Erotic" is when you use a feather. "Exotic" is when you use the whole chicken :-D
> I kid! I kid! Keep calm and carry on developing your herd immunity, mein Britischers!
If there ever was a "brute force" method of dealing with a Pandemic, it would be the one picked by the UK >.<
"Let them all get ill, and the ones that don't die from it may have immunity for a short while"
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Sunday April 19 2020, @07:50AM
An obvious decision by die BRUTischers! HAHAHAHAHA! I kill me!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Saturday April 18 2020, @09:27AM (4 children)
They still are often kept as pets and buried with ceremony in the UK.
Why do archeologists use religion to explain what they don't know?
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @11:33AM
>> Why do archeologists use religion to explain what they don't know?
The same reason AGW scientists use models to explain what they don't know.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @12:04PM (1 child)
Plus we treat cats as gods as of now.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 18 2020, @06:31PM
Cats were gods before the Egyptians were born. Without cats, there would have been no Egyptians - or Greeks, or Romans. People before the Egyptians must have been hard to convince, because the cats would come down from cat heaven wearing huge saber-toothed bodies, to punish the non-believers. I mean, how do you NOT believe in something with six inch (or longer) fangs? Even the most obtuse Neanderthal believed after an encounter with the big kitties.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @11:56PM
I was once told by an actual archaeologist that calling something a 'religious artifact' is what you say when you have absolutely no idea what something is and don't want to be called on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @09:51AM (3 children)
So were Scots and Irishmen. What is your point, you germanic pissant fuch?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @02:40PM (2 children)
Here's your point
The people of Britain at the time were poor rabbit/chicken/brown hare fuckers, they needed the virile Romans to keep those species at high population levels.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by legont on Saturday April 18 2020, @04:34PM
Free people always eat everything up and then mostly die off. The few left are enslaved and the process repeats.
On a more serious note, prosperity of humanity so far was only possible under an empire rule. Yes, citizens of empires were having bigger pie for nothing, but nevertheless the life of secondary nations under empire was better than free ones.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday April 19 2020, @03:56AM
Except for the inhabitants of Cambria. They had sheep for, um, company.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @02:46PM (1 child)
People still treat their pet cats and dogs as supreme. The pets make a mess and their owners clean up after them and then they feed and praise them for doing ... absolutely nothing useful. Who is the supreme race here, the humans who are serving their pets or their pets that are being served by humans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @04:27PM
The pet is in prison. Well not the cat, if it can go outside.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday April 18 2020, @04:37PM (2 children)
How exactly? And where hares came from? (Yes, I tried wiki for a couple of minutes)
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @06:33PM
Don't hares come from nostrils?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @06:47PM
Isn't this like asking where *any* species came from? Humans have the "out of Africa"
theory. The Wiki article says hares are native to Eurasia, Africa and North America. All of
these places were connected by land bridges or short portages that could have allowed
ancient people to easily transport them, or for a pair to have found their way
across a river or frozen sea. Perhaps South America and/or the tropical isthmus had too many predators for
them to take hold. They are infamously not native to Australia, so we know Aborigines didn't bring them.
Chickens? Same deal. We don't have real answers for most species; but based
on the behavior of humans in recorded history, they were almost certainly brought
by humans in many cases.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday April 18 2020, @06:48PM (2 children)
Well as for chickens and geese, their eggs would provide far more nutrition over their lives than just eating them right away. Also their feathers and down would provide comfort and decoration.
As for hares and rabbits, once they die (of natural cause) their fur can provide warmth. Also if a hare or rabbit eats a certain plant without harm, then that plant is likely to be nutritious to hairless apes.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @11:53PM
Agree with the birds, and rabbits today are often kept as pets. Most people don't skin their pets when they die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2020, @06:21PM
Chicken is basically meat grass. You give them chunk of land even with no apparently significantly source of nutrition on it and they will peck and fuck their way into a sustained Fibonacci level of reproduction. You practically have to slaughter them to keep the numbers from getting out of control. Also, if you don't slaughter them then they'll kill each other a good chunk of the time. Chickens are huge assholes. Even the females will peck each other to death. And roosters are a million times worse.
Claims of religion in archaeology are generally pretty irrelevant. Because anything that's not understood is attributed to religion as a default, because it works as an explanation for any otherwise bizarre phenomena. Claims of religion are constantly later overturned as new evidence emerges.