MACROSCOPIC PLANT REMAINS FROM THE WILSFORD SHAFT, WILTSHIRE.
Author(s): M Robinson
Macroscopic plant remains were investigated from middle Bronze Age waterlogged deposits recovered from the bottom of the Wilsford Shaft, a shaft cut to a depth of about 30m through the chalk near Stonehenge. The seeds can mostly be assigned to two phytosociological communities, a plough-arable weed flora belonging to the Caucalidion alliance of the Centauretalia and a flora of short-grazed chalk grassland belonging to the Mesobromion alliance of the Brometalia. Remains of three crops, Linum usitatissimum (Flax), Hordeum sativum (six-row hulled barley) and Triticum dicoccum (emmer wheat) were identified. Seeds of Papaver somniferum (opium poppy) represent the first pre-Iron Age finds from Britain. There is little evidence of either the plant communities which tend to grow around settlements and woodland or that scrub was a distant or minor component of the landscape. The shaft seems to have been situated at the conjunction of pasture and arable land.
- Report Number:
- 58/1988
- Series:
- AML Reports (New Series)
- Pages:
- 39
- Keywords:
- Plant Remains
