16th-Century Turkey Bones Uncovered at English Monastery

CHESHIRE, ENGLAND—According to a report in Runcorn and Widnes World, researchers at the University of Sheffield found turkey bones among the thousands of bone fragments of sheep, pig, and cattle unearthed at Norton Priory between 1970 and 1987. Located in northwest England, Norton Priory was an abbey complex inhabited from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. The turkey is thought to have been introduced to England from the New World in the early sixteenth century, and it became popular with Henry VIII and the wealthy, who until then had dined on swan, goose, peacock, and boar’s head. For more on archaeology in England, go to “A Villa under the Garden.”