[Sca-cooks] Another, older, banana found in London

[Terry Decker]

> Quoting:
>
> >The poster on the Calontir list makes the error of assuming the plantain 
> >was deposited in the mid-15th Century.  The site is a midden which, IIRC, 
> >was a fish market with live tanks, that was abandoned in the 15th Century 
> >and became a trash dump.  The plantain was located at a level of the 
> >midden placing it in the early to middle 16th Century and it was 
> >determined not to be a more modern intrusive artifact.
>
> Are the people remembering that the mid-15th century is around 1450 and 
> not 1550?  For modern Americans, using centuries rather than years can be 
> very confusing.  It's not really taught in schools nowadays.
>
> Alys K.

The article suggests that the find may be that old, but does not explain 
that the fishponds were abandoned in mid-15th Century (making the banana 
peel possibly but not probably that old) and were used as a dump for around 
250 to 300 years.  Later articles place the banana peel in the period 
roughly between 1530 and 1560, with one placing it as early as 1500.  The 
post was not an error on century, but taking the information in the srticle 
and transmitting it without further research on the subject (something I'm 
certainly guilty of when pressed for time or not particularly interested).

Bear