Circaea 5

One pit in S College Street contained peat ash; the other was a latrine with large numbers of fragmentary arable weed seeds (?famine food) and internal parasite eggs, together with fibre wads ?for personal hygiene. Black mustard seeds (Brassica nigra) were probably used as spice. Date is 17th/18th.

The relationship between palaeoecology and the interpretation of surface collections of artefacts is crucial to the understanding of prehistoric communities. A case study of the Meon Valley demonstrates the advantages of applying general models of settlement and land-use history to artefact distributions supplied by regional survey.

Argues misuse in 88/210 of pollen-analytical data, noting particularly the close connection of soil type and geology with human impacts on the landscape.