Aboriginal consumption of land snails

[Stephen Corsini]

Hi all
Does anyone know of any references, or archaeological examples, of the
collecting and eating of land snails by Aboriginal people,
particularly in the southern goldfields / eastern woodlands region of
Western Australia?

On a recent heritage survey we came across several concentrations of 30 to
50 large snail shells (shells 5-6cm long with openings around 3cm x 2cm) all
with holes knocked in them. In each of these concentrations the shells are
piled in an area of around 1mx1m around a fist-sized rock.

Across parts of the survey area there are unbroken snail shells occurring
singly but the only concentrations we have located are all gathered around a
rock and all the shells are broken. The locations are not water channels so
I don't believe the material is flood debris.

The Traditional Owners and I, will assert these are Aboriginal middens (we
believe the fist sized rock may have been used as an anvil).

So, does anyone know of any references, or archaeological examples, of the
collecting and eating of land snails by Aboriginal people,
particularly in the southern goldfields of Western Australia?

Regards

Steve Corsini

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hello Stephen,

Could birds or small mammals alternatively have done it?

I have seen lots of concentrations of Helix helix shells and I believe rodents of the Rattus rattus variety might have made some of those.

We don't have such 'exotic' acutely spires snails here like your very attractive ones though.

Cheers,

 

John

(Sydney)

 

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{OzArch} Aboriginal consumption of land snails

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[Michael Morrison]

Hi Steve,

In the savannah woodlands of western Cape York Peninsula (and I suspect elsewhere) it is quite common to find scatters of large landsnails, often 30 or more over an area 1-3 m in diameter. The first few we spotted were a little perplexing, until we found a newly formed scatter adjacent to a hollow tree that they had called home. A passing grassfire had burnt the tree, roasting them alive and causing them to drop to the ground forming a neat little scatter. I do not recall if they were cracked however this type of process combined with a clever bird such as a crow pecking holes in the tops of the freshly cooked shells might be an alternative explanation?

Regards
Mick

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[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hello,

My first hunch on this assemblage was that it most likely has nothing to do with Aboriginal or any other human activity - but more likely animal-related (i.e. doubting "The Traditional Owners and I, will assert these are Aboriginal middens (we believe the fist sized rock may have been used as an anvil)".

Small mammals, such as rats, or birds, were instead my first suspect instead of humans.   But I'd be happy to be wrong (and often am wrong on things.

However the whole subject of shell accumulations is one of the long-standing topics of geological interest too.

And to make it more complicated it is also one of those things where a completely nonsensical international terminological controversy evolved.

The other great case of nomenclatural controversy has been "mould" vs. "cast" - the English and the Americans having come to be using what seems like totally mirrored opposite senses of these two words that are extremely common in fossil descriptions.

There is someone currently writing a dictionary of palaoeontological terms (an immense task) and I will ask him if there was ever any resolution of that mix-up or of the one about shell accumulations.

Now the greatest words about shell accumulations - which once you know it (meaning after today) you will never forget - is thanatocoenosis [‚than·ə·tō·sə′nō·səs]

For us English-minded bods (meaning those who spell palaeontology the "right" way - and not as paleontology), a thanatocoenosis is quite obviously meaning the assemblage of dead organisms or fossils that occurred together in a given area at a given moment of geologic time. Also known as death assemblage; taphocoenosis (for example check it out in t he McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms).

Yet not so in Russia.   The Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1979 (which some thing might still be ideologically biased - e.g. Russia once took a particular political stance towards genetics and evolution) explain a thanatocoenosis as the "localized accumulation of the remains of dead organisms. The cause, time, and place of death of the individual are not important. Thanatocoenosis occurs, for example, when the remains of organisms that have perished at various times and in various places are deposited in a central location by flowing water. The dead matter can include insect and mollusk remains and bones of terrestrial animals".

Thus what Steve or others found at this area the Great Soviet Encyclopedia would call a thanatcoenosis.

But I think the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is wrong on this - and back when I went to fossils school (unis of both NSW/Syd) the emphasis on thanatocoenosis was to distinguish the TRUE death assemblage from all those other things that bring the dead together - i.e. an everyday cemetery is NOT a thanatocoenosis in our traditional (non-Russian) sense.

I doubt Steve's group of shells is a thanatocoenosis but the scenario envisaged by Mick just might squeeze into the definition?

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Re: {OzArch} Aboriginal consumption of land snails

[Jeannette Hope]

Hi Steve

Many of the archaeological sites at the Menindee Lakes, Darling River and
other localities in western NSW have gastropods - both freshwater and
terrestrial I think, as well as mussels. Genera are Vivipara. Plotiopsis,
Physastra, Glyptophysa, Succinea and Sinumelon. I have a memory of seeing
shells with holes as shown in your photo.

This is Jane Balme's work, and as she is in WA, you should go and talk
directly to her.

Regards

Jeannette Hope

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[vicky winton]

And in southern Africa John Kinahan thinks Trigonephrus spp. land snail was exploited by late Holocene hunter-gatherers:

 

Kinahan, J., and Kinahan, J., 2003. Excavation of a late Holocene cave deposit in the southern Namib Desert, Namibia.  Cimbebasia 18: 1-10.

 

(I should have a copy of this somewhere if you're interested)

 

Vicky

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 
Hello,

I attach rat-holes-in-snail-shells.jpg which shows a few rat-chewed holes in tree-snail shells at Hawaii.   Photographed by Nathan Yuen who writes a lot about the Hawaiian forests.

Cheers,

 

 

John

 

~~~~~~~~

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RE: {OzArch} Aboriginal consumption of land snails

[Steve Corsini]

Thanks everyone.

 

I had considered birds. The most likely contender would be crows (which I understand were also one of the local moiety totems) - and they can do all sorts of clever things, so it’s a fair possibility.

Other possible culprits might be butcher-birds, currawongs and magpies although I believe these are uncommon in that part of WA.

 

My hens also eat snails but they just peck them out of the shell openings! (I will have to find a dictionary of snail shell parts)  

 

Cheers

 

SJC

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 
Hi Steve,

I attach "Snails-eaten-by-birds.jpg" -  According to George Pilkington who is an environmental educator.

George thinks also that the snail shell calcium carbonate that they swallow helps them build their own eggs.

Any museum malacologist will likely know about all this, I'd imagine.

I'd like to know more about it.

Cheers,

 

John

 

 

 

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RE: {OzArch} Aboriginal consumption of land snails

[Steve Corsini]

Hi Shaun

Rats are a possibility for gnawing some of the holes in the shells, but most of the shells are smashed. I suppose rats might be able to crush shells but not sure if they would gather them into pile out in the open.

 

I had also wondered whether the collections of bright white shells might actually be the remains of bower-bird bowers (the bower having been consumed by bushfires).

I recorded such a thing near Argyle Diamond Mine, although it was quartz pebbles rather than shells, and included several artefacts. But these were in two small piles about a metre apart rather than one big collection

 

I might need to draft a research grant application to compare rat, bird and human shell-breaking techniques to see if there are discernible differences in breakage patterns

 

Cheers

 

SJC

 

From: Shaun Canning [mailto:Shaun....@achm.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 7 October 2013 8:34 PM
To: Steve Corsini <sjcarc@bigpond. com>
Subject: Re: {OzArch} Aboriginal consumption of land snails

 

What about rats / mice?

Regards,

 

Dr. Shaun Canning,

General Manager - Victoria

Principal Heritage Advisor

 

Australian Cultural Heritage Management (Vic) Pty Ltd

G.P.O Box 5112, Melbourne, VIC, 3001

Phone:  1300 724 913

Fax:        (03) 5781 0860

Mobile:  0400 204 536

 

shaun....@achm.com.au 

 

http://au.linkedin.com/pub/dr-shaun-canning/14/20a/522

 

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[Daniel Rosendahl]

Hey Steve,

If you can't find a direct reference a good substitute would be , Safer,
J.F. and Gill, F.M. 1982 Spirals from the Sea: An Anthropological Look at
Shells. New York: Clarkson N. Potter. On pages 19-20 they conclude that
whether a mollusc is considered edible or inedible is ultimately a cultural
matter.

Kind regards

Dan


Dr Daniel Rosendahl
Archaeologist | Adjunct Research Fellow | James Cook University
"I do not think it means what you think it means" (Inigo Montoya 1987)

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Stephen Corsini
Sent: Sunday, 6 October 2013 7:07 PM
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Subject: {OzArch} Aboriginal consumption of land snails

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hello Steve,

When I first replied with analogy of the common snail (Helix) around Sydney and saying Rattus rattus is suspect that was based on my experience.

Re "not sure if they would gather them into pile out in the open", I don't know about fully "in the open" but I have found small concentrations around/under rocks.

Something, presumably rats, leaves them (sometimes in clusters) in some ceilings (also possums get in ceilings a lot).

But they (eaten snails) also occur in narrow spaces in the corners under tiles (where the rafters rest on walls) in garages - in spaces probably too small for possums.

I still don't know of any actual references on this but I have asked around nature-lovers I know and the consensus seems to be on rats primarily and birds secondarily in importance in snail depredation.

One man is pretty certain that both rats and mice eat them.

However, on top of the rats gnawing the shells to get the live snail out, it is said that later on the shells left by the rats/mice are also 'eaten' by birds which attack and eat them further - purely for the calcium (for their eggs presumably, just as with chooks liking shell grit.

Once weakened or partly broken by the rodents, smaller birds will then take advantage.

I have not had either crows nor bower birds (I wondered about them too) mentioned at all by those I asked so far.   Instead I was told that blue or great tits definitely break snail shells down further.

I googled that (great tits snails) and the first find is "Decline in snail abundance due to soil acidification causes eggshell deterioration in forest passerines" by J. Graveland and R. van de Vaal.

This says that snail shells are the main source of calcium for eggshells in forests for tits where everything is going okay.

In areas where eggshell defects have been noted, the snails have declined.

The authors conclude that anthropogenic acidification has been to blame in those areas.  

When the tits can't get snail shells they (according to this source) resort to eating mortar.

Or they go to the areas frequented by the humans (a.k.a. picnic areas) and there they look for discarded bits of chicken/chook eggshell and eat those bits.

This what was told to be pers. comm. does check out in the literature.

Cheers,

 

 

John

 

~~~~~~~

 

Cheers,

 

John

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RE: {OzArch} Aboriginal consumption of land snails

[Jeannette Hope]

That’s all reasonable, but birds eating snail shells for the calcium is not likely in western NSW where calcium is everywhere – Gill 1973 estimated ca 800,000 metric tons per sq kilometre (a total coincidence that I have just read this ca half an hour ago).

 

Also Rattus rattus may be your contemporary culprit, but that species is of course a European introduction. 

 

Cheers

 

Jeannette

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[Andy Orr]

Steve,

Growing up next to an estuary in Ireland, we often saw oystercatchers and seagulls drop shellfish from great heights during flight onto broad rock outcrops, concrete footpaths, metal bridges, but what resulted was a mess including dispersed and highly fragmented shell.

More relevant is the fact that land birds in the North West European Archipelago are well known to use anvil stones to crack land snails, holding them in the beak as they do so. Individuals often use one favourite stone, even when there are many to chose from. Collections of shells next to a stone are usually credited to members of the thrush family though I suspect other birds use the same method. Thrushes and Blackbirds don't migrate to Australia voluntarily but there have been substantial introduced populations here for some time. There's every likelihood that local species, including members of the Crow family, do the same thing.

Here's a fairly shaky video showing a thrush midden in England.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB7lh2pYL7E

A chat with an experienced twitcher/birdwatcher from the region might help rule birds in or out.

Andy