Dear Histarchers,
 
Have so enjoyed and learned from the discussions lately.
 
I've 'done' a lot of buildings in my time here in the Antipodes (so dealing
with, 1790s period onward). Often noted large but also small bones
scattered under floors and in some places corncobs. In many cases there was
no obvious access to the underfloor area to account for the large bones. I
concluded that, in many instances, this was the result of the builders
having a bite to eat. Noticed that in modern underfloor areas remains of
builders' morning teas and lunches (wrappers, cans) were nearly always to
be found but rarely bones.
 
Sydney's Hyde Park Barracks is a different story. Huge networks of rat
tunnels filled with bones, ceramics, glass, household items of any sort,
smoking pipes, even coins, rosery beads, holy medals. Under the upper
floors, the best and most numerous textile samples of the 1820s-1870s
period in Australia plus all the above and many mummified rats. We dubbed
them, Trader Rats - not very logical perhaps but why did they collect all
that diverse material? I would say 90% of the material was brought in by
the rats.
 
Regards,
 
Robert
 
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