WARDY HILL, COVENEY, CAMBRIDGESHIRE (TL 478820: COY 1: EXCAVATIONS 1991-2). CHARRED AND UNCHARRED PLANT MACROFOSSILS AND MOLLUSCS FROM AN IRON AGE RINGWORK ON THE FEN-EDGE.
Author(s): P Murphy
Ninety four bulk samples including charred material were analysed. Pre-ringwork contexts produced very little evidence for crop production or processing, but contexts of 1st century BC/AD date produced abundant remains of emmer and spelt, with some bread wheat, six-row hulled barley, wild or cultivated oats, and probably flax and a pulse crop. Local cultivation on poorly-drained clay soils is inferred from the weed flora. There was also evidence for collection of Cladium (sedge), probably for use as fuel, thatching or litter, and for some small-scale wild plant food foraging. The samples were largely composed of crop waste- or by-products, probably including both sieving and winnowing waste. Spatial patterning of charred macrofossils was interpreted as indicating that crop processing was confined within the defended enclosure, and that cereal waste had been used as a fuel on domestic hearths. A concentration of material in the south-east part of the enclosure implied a focus of crop cleaning. Two column samples were examined from the lower organic fills of the Outer Enclosure Ditch. Macrofossils of thorny shrubs were common, and this is thought to indicate that a hedgerow or encouraged zone of scrub on the bank formed part of the defences or, more prosaically, a barrier to exclude or confine stock. Samples from the ?fen' side of this circuit indicated standing water from the beginning of the infilling, whereas on the ?landward side', at a higher elevation, there was evidence for increasingly wet conditions and flooding.
- Report Number:
- 9/2000
- Series:
- AML Reports (New Series)
- Pages:
- 36
- Keywords:
- Animal Remains Mollusca Plant Remains
