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Vegetation Hist Archaeobotany 16 (5)
Title
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Title:
Vegetation Hist Archaeobotany 16 (5)
Series
The series the publication or report is included in
Series:
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Volume
Volume number and part
Volume:
16 (5)
Publication Type
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Publication Type:
Journal
Editor
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Editor:
Felix Bittmann
Publisher
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Publisher:
Springer
Year of Publication
The year the book, article or report was published
Year of Publication:
2007
Source
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Source:
BIAB (The British & Irish Archaeological Bibliography (BIAB))
Relations
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Relations:
URI:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/0939-6314
Created Date
The date the record of the pubication was first entered
Created Date:
27 Aug 2008
Please click on an Article link to go to the Article Details.
Article Title
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Abstract
Interpretation of charcoal and pollen data relating to a late Iron Age ritual site in eastern Ireland: a holistic approach
Conor Newman
Michael O'Connell
Mary Dillon
Karen Molloy
349 - 365
The study of charcoal produced by five burning episodes that occurred in a rapid succession within a ritual pit dating to the Late Iron Age at Raffin Fort, Co. Meath, Ireland, reveals considerable variation in the charcoal assemblages resulting from each burning episode. Wood selection processes are considered against the background of information on woodland composition and land-use history provided by a detailed pollen diagram from nearby Emlagh Bog, the chronology of which is based on both AMS 14C dates and tephra analysis. A human skull fragment lay on top of the charcoal layers but the radiocarbon evidence indicates that the skull predated the burnings by at least a century. This and other evidence indicate a ritual pit with the skull as a human relic. It is suggested that, in this instance, wood selection was neither random nor determined solely by availability or combustibility, but instead may have been informed by socio-religious belief systems pertaining to trees and wood. Early Irish documentary sources, which reveal a complex ethnography of wood and trees in later prehistoric and early historic Ireland, are reviewed. The results shed fresh light on aspects of Late Iron Age archaeology in a part of Europe that was outside the direct influence of the Roman world. New information is provided on a distinctive feature in late Holocene Irish pollen records namely the Late Iron Age Lull (ca. ad 1--500). During this time, widespread regeneration of woody vegetation took place. In the subsequent early medieval period renewed farming activity resulted in substantial decline in woodland, a pattern also seen at many other locations in Ireland.
Mid to late Holocene vegetation and land use history in the Weald of south-eastern England: multiple pollen profiles from the Rye area
Martyn P Waller
J E Schofield
367 - 384
The High Weald is an unusually well-wooded area in southern England. A high proportion of this woodland is ancient, being formerly exploited as seasonal pasture and coppice. Multiple pollen profiles from the Rye area have been used to elucidate the origins of this cultural landscape. By combining sites with small and large pollen source areas, both local and regional patterns of vegetation change have been determined. The mid-Holocene Tilia-dominated woodlands were subjected to temporary clearance as early as the Neolithic. This woodland was more extensively exploited over a c. 700 year period from the beginning of the Bronze Age. The main elements of the modern landscape (woodland, pasture and limited cultivation) can be traced back to a more intensive phase of human activity, which commenced in the Late Bronze Age. A regional increase in Fagus sylvatica pollen c. 750 BC probably reflects the use of the Wealden woods for pasturage. There is no palynological evidence that the fuel demands of the Roman iron industry resulted in widespread woodland destruction. The early Anglo-Saxon period appears to have been one of land-use continuity, with a second increase in Fagus pollen at c. AD 700 corresponding to historical evidence for the presence of wood-pastures in the Weald.
The weeds from the thatch roofs of medieval cottages from the south of England
Dominique De Moulins
385 - 398
Late medieval soot-coated thatch includes a number of very well preserved weeds as well as cereals or reeds. The paper investigates the weeds from the thatch roofs of thirteen cottages from the south of England. It describes the exceptional preservation of the weeds which include plant parts rarely recorded in archaeological contexts and the information they can give about late medieval ecology and agronomy. One of the main implications of this study is the relation of this material to the usual archaeological samples and the possibility that remains of thatch may have been missed in past archaeobotanical investigations.
