Bear baiting in England became more popular after the Norman Conquest in 1066, new research shows.
The study by Cardiff University and the University of Nottingham brings together archaeological analysis of bear bones and archival records to show the prevalence of the animals in England and northern France during medieval times.
It has long been known that bear baitings – the act of setting dogs on tethered bears to fight - were organised for Queen Elizabeth I and took place in Bankside, London in Shakespeare’s day. These latest findings show it was widespread much earlier than this – approximately 400 years before. There is even an image of a bear baiting scene in the lower margin of the Bayeux Tapestry.
Although wild bears were native to Great Britain, they became extinct by the Roman period. Researchers believe that brown bears were imported into England from Europe, with remains being confirmed from as far afield as Colchester and Carlisle.
Dr Liam Lewis, based at Cardiff University’s School of Global Humanities, said: “The combination of literary, archival, archaeological, and visual analysis enables us to definitively conclude that bear baiting was an established activity in England by the twelfth century. The lack of bear remains from live animals in England prior to the Norman Conquest, and their appearance in London and North Yorkshire immediately afterwards, suggests that there was an increase in the importation of live bears to England after that time.
“Our research demonstrates that the activity of baiting, while associated with marriages, aristocratic pastimes, and raucous festivities in medieval stories and sermons, was clearly popular entertainment among the general public as well, with bear bones indicative of live animals being found in a number of English towns. This is despite bears needing to be imported to England from overseas and therefore presumably carrying costs for importation, travel and sustenance.”
Researchers have long looked at images of dancing and performing bears in the margins of medieval manuscripts and wondered whether it was common for people to encounter bears in the Middle Ages. This is the first detailed study bringing together archaeological and documentary evidence that shows a widespread pattern of owning bears and moving them around England as far back as the time of William the Conqueror.
Bear bones from the period have been identified at 10 sites in England and France, with a new date on a shoulder blade from Richmond demonstrating bears were in northern England immediately after the Norman Conquest. Documents such as the Domesday Book, historical records and medieval manuscripts were also surveyed for information about medieval bears.
Professor Hannah O’Regan of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Classics and Archaeology said: “Bear baiting was an important social and economic activity in early modern England, and here we demonstrate that is has much longer roots. This is the first study of its medieval origins and the new radiocarbon date on the bear from Richmond, North Yorkshire shows that bears were widespread very early in the medieval period.”
The authors worked with the The Yorkshire Museum to sample the Richmond scapula for radiocarbon dating. The scapula was dated by Dr Thibaut Devièse at the University of Oxford as part of the NERC-funded Decline of the Bear project with Professor O’Regan. The unexpectedly late radiocarbon date placed the bear firmly into the medieval period, which was already being studied by Lewis and O’Regan as part of the AHRC-funded Box Office Bears project.
Dr Lewis added: “This work has shown just how widespread bear baiting was, and that it had strong medieval precursors. The Richmond date, on a scapula found in 1864 and held in The Yorkshire Museum demonstrates the importance of keeping samples and examining old collections, as we still have much more to learn. Even more excitingly, Richmond is also mentioned in one of the earliest references to a named medieval ‘bearward’ – Spenellus, who lived there in the early 1200s.”
'The Origins of Bear Baiting: Evidence from Medieval England and France', is published in the journal Society and Animals and is available to view here.
Scientists lower a hollow metal tube (a freeze core) filled with dry ice and ethanol to collect sediment samples from the lake bottom. Like rings of a tree, each layer of sediment in Crawford Lake can be dated to a specific year.
An international team of scientists featuring faculty at Binghamton University has recreated a 1,000-year timeline documenting the ecological changes and human impact to the area surrounding Crawford Lake, the famed location of the proposed Anthropocene.
By analyzing sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) samples found preserved in the lake bottom sediment, scientists were able to reconstruct a diverse, high-resolution dataset of the entire ecosystem surrounding the lake – including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi – and map changes over the centuries.
Crawford Lake is a meromictic lake, meaning the water column does not mix with the lakebed. Its unique properties cause sediment in the upper level to settle on the lake floor, where it is preserved in alternating layers of calcite and organic laminae (sediment layers that are rich in organic material).
“Like the rings of a tree, each layer of sediment can be dated to a specific year, offering an exceptionally preserved record of environmental changes over time,” said Matthew Emery, co-first author of the study and assistant professor of anthropology at Binghamton University.
“Our analysis of these sedimentary biomolecules shows us how the whole ecosystem changed over time – from the period before local agriculture, through periods of Indigenous farming by Longhouse Peoples, followed by site abandonment and local ecological succession, and then into the Euro-Canadian period with renewed impacts from logging, lumbering, milling, farming, and eventually global markers in the upper layers from industrialization,” said Tyler Murchie, co-first author of the study, lead scientist of Biodiversity Genomics: Ancient DNA at the Hakai Institute and adjunct assistant professor of Anthropology at McMaster University.
The lake gained global prominence within the scientific community as researchers debated the merits of the Anthropocene, which was a proposed geological epoch marked by humanity’s lasting impacts on the environment. Because Crawford Lake’s sediment contains a well-preserved record of human impact – including fossil fuel remnants, plastics, artificial fertilizers, acid rain, and even plutonium – it was a favorite among geologists supporting the new epoch. Though ultimately rejected, debate on the validity of the Anthropocene continues.
"What we're really looking at is a filing cabinet, a time capsule," said Emery. "Each layer holds the plants and animals that were living around the lake when those layers formed, and if nothing has shuffled the order, you can read straight down through the centuries and millennia."
Since Crawford Lake has been the subject of decades of scientific scrutiny, it offered scientists using sedaDNA an unparalleled opportunity to validate their work and to reveal new insights.
“Some of what we found confirmed what decades of research at Crawford Lake had already shown, but the sedaDNA also revealed things no one had seen before,” said Murchie. “For example, cattle DNA appears in sediments dating to the early 1800s, giving us new evidence of cattle in the surrounding landscape that wasn’t visible in the traditional palaeoecological record. In addition to being able to simultaneously track the shifting mosaic of algae, bacteria, plants, animals, and insects — all through the fragments of environmental DNA they left behind over the last 1,000 years.”
Murchie, along with co-senior author Hendrik Poinar, professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, have worked extensively to sequence ancient DNA found in sedimentary rock and other sources.
To separate useful DNA from background noise, scientists use genetic baits made of RNA that bind to the DNA of a specific species, if it is present in the sample. The RNA also binds to magnetic beads, allowing researchers to reel in their target DNA using a magnet.
"These techniques were designed to chase down extinct megafauna – Pleistocene mammals – including our extinct hominin relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans," said Emery. "Now we're using them on lake mud to track human-environment interactions as recent as centuries and extending back deep in geological time. It's the range and resolution that I find remarkable."
Baits can be combined into sets that target hundreds to thousands of species genomes at a time. This method, called capture enrichment, is far more efficient compared to random or shotgun sequencing.
Capture enrichment allows us to be very selective in the plants and animals we target,” said Poinar. “We can decide what it is we want to search for beforehand – what we think might or could be in there.”
At McMaster, Poinar was among the first to bring capture enrichment to ancient DNA, which has led to many insightful discoveries about the ancient world.
“One of the biggest surprises was that older DNA isn’t necessarily more damaged,” said Murchie. “Some of the roughly 500-year-old lake sedaDNA from plants and animals at Crawford Lake is more damaged than DNA tens to hundreds of thousands of years older from permafrost sites in northwestern Canada, showing that preservation conditions matter far more than age alone.”
“The study data also confirms the presence of Indigenous peoples who farmed maize (corn) and sunflowers near Crawford Lake between the 1200s and the 1500s.
Three Sisters agriculture is an Indigenous farming technique introduced to the Great Lakes region during the Late Woodland Period (approximately 1000 to 1650 CE). It features maize, beans, and squash – crops that help each other grow when planted side by side. The technique is called Four Sisters when sunflower is included.
For the first time, scientists have detected two of the Four Sisters crops – maize and sunflower – via sedaDNA analysis of lake core samples. The findings are also helping scientists understand the human-led changes to the environment, including the impacts of early farming.
“We see a sharp increase in Canada goose DNA during periods of Indigenous agriculture, consistent with geese foraging in the cultivated fields and then roosting on Crawford Lake,” said Murchie. “Their droppings would have carried both nutrients and traces of the crops they were eating into the lake, likely helping drive the repeated algal blooms from nutrient influxes that we can also see evidence of in the sedimentary DNA record.”
Known scientifically as eutrophication events, algae blooms are caused by excess nutrients in the water. These nutrients can come from natural sources, like geese droppings, though today they are often driven by artificial fertilizers. Algae blooms may have led to the site’s abandonment, which happened on more than one occasion, according to the sedaDNA record.
After abandonment in the 1500s, Crawford Lake’s ecology eventually shifted back to pine trees, rabbits, deer, beavers, and loons – with a notable absence of maize.
While fossil and pollen studies have found the presence of beans and squash at the village surrounding Crawford Lake, these targets were not found in the lake sediment. Scientists believe this could be due to the geese preferring maize and sunflower in their diets, or a gap in the bait set used in their DNA analysis.
The study used the PaleoChip Arctic v1.0, a bait set designed for Pleistocene and early Holocene sites – far older than the more contemporary period of human activity at Crawford Lake. The team is working to improve their bait sets for better capture enrichment.
“The lack of beans and squash in our results highlights the importance of developing an Eastern Woodland panel for future targeted ancient DNA research,” said Murchie.
In January, Poinar and Murchie received an NSERC Alliance grant to develop improved sedaDNA methods for permafrost and marine sediments, support the reconstruction of long-term terrestrial and marine ecosystem dynamics, and build the Canadian Ancient DNA Network.
“Our study was only possible through collaboration – genetics, archeology, traditional Indigenous knowledge, lake chemistry, and geochemistry – these sit at the intersection of making the unknown a little bit more tangible and the past recovered, almost like magic,” said Poinar.
The international team included scientists from McMaster University, the Hakai Institute, Brock University, the University of Alberta, and the University of British Columbia in Canada; Binghamton University, and Arizona State University in the United States; and Stockholm University in Sweden.
Scientists recently discovered various Denisovan remains in Southwest China dating back to the late Middle Pleistocene, including the first Denisovan radius—one of two long bones in the forearm.
Denisovans are a genetically identified archaic hominin group believed to have been widely distributed across Asia. However, due to the limited number of fossil remains, especially postcranial bones—those below the skull—a distribution gap has long existed in Southwest China. Therefore, little is known about the physical traits that allowed Denisovans to adapt to different environments.
In a new study, researchers employed a novel proteomic strategy to identify additional hominin bones from a Paleolithic site called Bianfu Cave in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province. Paleoproteomic analysis confirmed five hominin remains as Denisovans, helping fill the distribution gap of Denisovans in Southwest China.
According to the researchers, the discovery of the first Denisovan radius provides crucial insights into Denisovan postcranial phenotype.
The study, published in Nature on September 9, was conducted by a research team led by Professor FU Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with multiple institutions.
New Strategy
ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) has recently become an important tool for large-scale screening of hominin fossils due to its advantages of micro-invasive sampling, methodological simplicity, rapid identification, and low cost. However, the recovery rate of hominin fossils has been extremely low—only 0.1% at sites such as Denisova Cave and Baishiya Karst Cave. Given that Bianfu Cave yielded more than 60,000 bone fragments, conducting ZooMS analysis on all specimens would be both costly and inefficient.
To overcome this challenge, the researchers developed a novel “morphological pre-screening + ZooMS identification” strategy. This combined approach significantly improved screening efficiency and provided a replicable methodological framework for discovering hominin remains at similar Paleolithic sites with abundant bone fragments.
Through morphological pre-screening, the researchers selected 22 potential hominin remains from the large assemblage of bone fragments. Subsequent ZooMS analysis confirmed that two parietal bone fragments (BFD767 and BFD769) and one proximal radial fragment (BFD771) were derived from hominins.
Among the three newly identified hominin specimens, BFD767 and BFD771 originated from Layer 7, which also contained four hominin teeth. This layer was dated to approximately 148,000–134,000 years ago. BFD769 came from the older Layer 9, dated to approximately 167,000–150,000 years ago.
In addition to the three hominin bones, the research team also analyzed two hominin teeth excavated from Layer 7, including a lower fourth premolar (YHB3518) and a lower second molar (YHB3075).
To obtain comprehensive proteomic profiles of the five specimens, the team extracted and analyzed proteins from multiple fractions of different tissues, including bone, dentine, and enamel. Six to 16 endogenous proteins were identified from each specimen, covering 1,972 to 4,076 amino acid residues. Notably, abundant specific peptides from the amelogenin Y isoform were identified in the enamel of the two teeth, indicating that both teeth belonged to male individuals.
Population Assignment
To determine the population assignment of these hominin specimens, the research team systematically screened for single amino acid polymorphisms (SAPs) within the endogenous proteomes.
They found that all five samples carried the Denisovan-specific variant COL1A2 R996K, indicating their Denisovan identity. Three additional informative SAPs were identified in the enamel of two Bianfu Cave teeth: the Denisovan-related variant AMBN M273V; AMELY 179L, a variant shared by modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans; and AMBN 253A, a variant that distinguishes the Bianfu Cave individuals from Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus in East Asia.
Using the consensus sequences of endogenous proteins from each sample, the researchers constructed Bayesian phylogenetic trees with topologies highly consistent with those obtained from nuclear genome studies. The trees placed modern humans as the sister group to the Neanderthal-Denisovan clade. Each Bianfu Cave sample formed a monophyletic clade with Denisova 3, with a posterior probability of 100 percent. This result aligns with the SAP assignments, supporting the reliable attribution of these specimens as Denisovans.
Morphological Phenotype
Comprehensive morphological analysis was conducted on the two Denisovan parietal bones (BFD767 and BFD769) and one partial radius (BFD771). The cranial vault thickness pattern of Bianfu Cave hominins is most similar to that of H. heidelbergensis and East Asian late Middle Pleistocene archaic Homo.
Notably, BFD771 is the only confirmed Denisovan radius to date. Although it has large proximal dimensions and a likely medially oriented radial tuberosity, similar to Neanderthal radii, its overall external shape and mid-neck cross-sectional geometry align more closely with modern humans. According to the researchers, the first identified Denisovan radius fragment is of exceptional importance. Its mosaic features indicate unique biomechanical demands and behavioral adaptations in Denisovans, differing from those inferred for Neanderthals and modern humans.
Based on their results, Bianfu Cave has the richest Denisovan fossil record currently known outside Denisova Cave. The study fills a critical geographical gap in the known distribution of Denisovans. The Denisovan remains were derived from two different stratigraphic layers dating to Marine Isotope Stage 6. During this glacial period, the relatively warmer climate and abundant food resources may have enabled the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to serve as a favorable habitat for hominins and supported the long-term survival of the Bianfu Cave population.
Led by Professor Adam Brumm from Griffith’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), and involving ARCHE colleagues Associate Professors Carney Matheson and Michelle Langley, the team combined biochemical and archaeological evidence to trace the prehistoric roots of one of the world’s most popular addictive stimulants, “betel nut”, an ancient drug used throughout much of the Asia-Pacific region.
The group’s research, conducted in collaboration with Indonesian archaeologists from Makassar’s University of Hasanuddin and the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), shows that the use of betel nut as a drug emerged among some Indonesian communities by up to 25,000 years ago, moving beyond the previously suggested Neolithic or Bronze Age (~3500 years ago) start times.
Current theories on the earliest history of drug-taking
Presently, it is thought the world’s first traditions of psychoactive drug use arose after the Neolithic advent of farming, beginning with the innovation of fermented alcoholic drinks (barley beer) about 13,000 years ago in Israel.
“However, this theory fails to account for the possibility that very ancient drug-taking lies at the roots of our most commonly used psychoactive substances,” Professor Brumm said.
Professor Brumm’s investigation focused on the origins of betel nut usage, a near-universal tradition among hundreds of millions of people between India and the South Pacific (about one in 10 of the modern global population).
Consuming betel nut induces a sense of mild euphoria and heightened alertness, among other effects.
“Although poorly known in western societies, it is the world’s fourth most widely used psychoactive substance, after alcohol, caffeine and nicotine,” Professor Brumm said.
Modern users take the betel drug by mixing a processed seed of the Areca catechu palm (the betel “nut”) with slaked lime – commonly made by grinding burnt shells into a fine powder – and other ingredients to form a “quid”, which is then chewed to get high.
“Slaked lime is an essential ingredient because it causes a chemical reaction that releases the nut’s psychoactive compounds into the bloodstream more rapidly,” Professor Brumm said.
The early history of this drug use practice had remained uncertain, largely because areca seeds were rarely preserved at archaeological sites.
Discovery reveals prehistoric drug use
In the new study, published in Science Advances, the Griffith team reports the discovery of extremely rare skeletal remains of two early human foragers from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, one dating to 25,000-16,000 years ago, the other to 7600-6300 years ago.
Both hunter-gatherers display a highly unusual dental-wear pattern (deep, rounded tooth grooves), a novel bioarchaeological marker the researchers established was caused by a previously unknown drug-use behaviour: habitual sucking of whole betel nuts.
Previous reports suggested the main neuroactive alkaloid in betel nut (arecoline) was released by chewing the processed nut in a prepared quid with slaked lime, with the latter converting arecoline into a free base form, thereby increasing its bioavailability.
"But our team conducted experiments in which we soaked betel nuts in artificial saliva and tested the resultant broths against a panel of cloned human receptors expressed in frog egg cells, including specialised proteins that act as molecular switches, regulating neural activity,” Professor Brumm said.
“This showed that just sucking on intact betel nuts will release arecoline in sufficient amounts to have a physiological effect, altering brain function.”
In addition, biochemical analyses carried out by Associate Professor Carney Matheson detected the presence of arecoline in the dental tissues of the foragers, providing strong evidence for betel nut ingestion.
Taken together, the findings suggest early foragers in Sulawesi engaged in an ancient and longstanding practice of habitually sucking betel nuts, resulting in dramatic alterations to their teeth.
Bad medicine
While the psychoactive “high” of sucking betel nuts may have been milder than modern quid chewing, the team suggested the habit was significant enough to cause severe periodontal disease.
Ancient foragers on this island generally had bad teeth, and arecoline is a natural analgesic (“painkiller”), so the team suspected one reason for betel nut-sucking was to alleviate the discomfort of toothache.
“Over time, however, sucking these hard, abrasive seeds wore down the foragers’ teeth so badly that in some cases the inner pulp chamber became completely exposed – this would have been extremely painful, caused difficulty eating, and greatly increased the rate of chronic tooth infection,” Professor Brumm said.
“So while this habit may have been a remedy for toothache, years of prolonged nut-sucking eventually caused much worse dental health problems, creating a cycle of continued habitual use.”
Earliest evidence for drug use
This finding marks a significant shift in our understanding of human drug history, as the practice of using betel nut can now be traced to the Late Pleistocene period.
“Emerging by up to 25,000 years ago in Sulawesi, thus long preceding the onset of agriculture, betel nut-sucking may be the earliest evidence for drug use anywhere in the world,” Professor Brumm said.
“By identifying the ancient practice underlying betel-nut chewing as we know it, the study implies that some modern drug-taking behaviours are deeply rooted in forager traditions.”
The findings also suggest habitual psychoactive substance use, and its associated health costs, were already present among hunter-gatherers tens of thousands of years before agriculture.
A multi-proxy approach combining carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and strontium isotope analyses from human remains with radiocarbon dating, palaeoproteomic sex determination, archaeological and anthropological records, and previously published genetic data was applied. The researchers were able to establish whether the populations that began consuming millet were local, to reconstruct the life stages at which this crop became available to individuals, and to identify the cultural profiles and biological sex of millet consumers. Each proxy answers a different question: carbon and nitrogen isotopes reflect a person's average diet over years, while oxygen and strontium isotopes reflect the geology and hydrology of the area where their food came from during tissue formation. The researchers discovered that millet became part of the diet of Bronze Age communities in south-eastern Poland around 1590 BCE – more than a century earlier than previously estimated – highlighting that millet was consumed gradually by a handful of individuals before it became a major staple.
Dietary changes both between communities and within individual lifetimes were identified by analysing tissues formed at different life stages, showing that several early millet consumers had grown up on diets dominated by traditional crops such as wheat and barley before incorporating millet later in life. This enabled the team to pinpoint the period at which the new crop entered existing foodways, and thus to gain the first precise insights into this gradual process across Bronze Age communities of Central Europe.
New land-use opportunities
Millet, however, was not eaten by everyone but only by part of the population. “And the different strontium isotope compositions in the skeletal tissues of millet consumers versus non-consumers likely point to the use of distinct geological zones within the same territory, rather than to different places of birth”, explains co-author Prof Snoeck from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). Because millet grows rapidly and tolerates relatively dry conditions and poor soils, its cultivation allowed Bronze Age communities to exploit areas that were less suitable for traditional cereals. “In response to increasing food demand and potential changes in climatic conditions, Bronze Age societies adopted a new resilient staple crop to optimise the use of previously marginal parts of their environment and improve food security”, explains lead author Dr Depaermentier from Vilnius University (Lithuania).
Both consumers and non-consumers moreover shared broadly similar archaeological and genetic backgrounds, and the earliest consumers exhibited strontium isotope signatures compatible with local origins. The data therefore provide little support for a simple population-migration-based explanation. Instead, this study suggests that the cultivation of this new crop was associated with changes in how communities used the landscape, enabling cultivation to expand into a broader range of environmental settings.
Across social boundaries
The findings also highlight that “millet consumption was not restricted to a particular sex, age group or social status”, says co-author Prof Makarowicz from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland). Together with the strontium isotope evidence, this demonstrates that access to particular parts of the landscape rather than social identity was the determining factor shaping the adoption of this new crop within the society. “The study is the first to link such division of the landscape to the cultivation of a new summer crop, and to the exploitation of areas that had previously seen little agricultural use”, summarises senior author Prof Motuzaitė Matuzevičiūtė from Vilnius University (Lithuania), who is also a PI of the ERC-CoG MILWAYS project. Understanding these processes can contribute to current discussions about crop diversification and adaptation to changing environmental conditions.
