THE HISTORIC ENGLAND ZOOARCHAEOLOGY REFERENCE COLLECTION: DESCRIPTION AND LIST Polydora Baker, Eva Fairnell, Fay Worley SUMMARY This document lists the current holdings of the Historic England zooarchaeology reference collection held at Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth, UK. A total of 3308 specimens is listed, of which 2387 are complete skeletons. These include approximately 115 species of mammal, 220 species of bird, 9 species of reptile, 5 species of amphibian and 55 species of fish. The vertebrate skeleton reference collection is available for consultation: please refer to our access policy (http://www.historicengland.org.uk/research/approaches/research methods/Archaeology/zooarchaeology/). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The original collection list and description were compiled by Elaine Corke, Simon Davis and Sebastian Payne, and subsequently curated by Polydora Baker, Fay Worley, Mick Revill and Eva Fairnell. Complete specimen data recorded on individual paper records were added to the database by Gemma Ayton. We are grateful to Manny Lopez and Hugh Corley for IT support. COLLECTION LOCATION Historic England, Fort Cumberland, Fort Cumberland Rd, Portsmouth PO4 9LD, UK CONTACT DETAILS Zooarchaeology, Environmental Studies, Historic England, Fort Cumberland, Fort Cumberland Rd, Portsmouth PO4 9LD, UK Polydora Baker, Tel. 02392 856774. E-mail:
[email protected] Fay Worley, Tel.: 02392 856789. E-mail:
[email protected] 1 Historic England Zooarchaeology Reference Collection web list July 2020 INTRODUCTION The role of the Historic England Research Department vertebrate skeleton reference collection is to: • enable the identification and interpretation of animal remains from archaeological sites in England • provide comparative material for a long-term study of the development of the ‘traditional’ British domesticated animals • facilitate research on the biogeography of extinct and introduced species.