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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZESTE 



Discussion 



The charred assemblages 



The charred remains are typical of sites at which a 

 cereal economy based on spelt wheat and hulled 

 barley is represented. These are the principal cereal 

 crops recovered from much of southern Britain, 

 including the Hampshire and Wiltshire area, during 

 the Iron Age, and formed the staple of the cereal 

 economy until the end of the Roman period (Grieg 

 1991; Campbell 2000). The presence of large 

 quantities of spelt wheat glume bases suggests that 

 the deposits sampled contain the by-product of 

 cereal processing. Glume bases tend to survive 

 charring less readily than cereal grains (Boardman 

 and Jones 1990), hence the dominance of glumes 

 over grain must indicate the presence of loose chaff 

 as opposed to whole unprocessed spikelets. The 

 large number of weed seeds are likely to have derived 

 from arable weeds extracted from the cereal by 

 sieving. The deposits therefore contain a mixture 

 of cereal product (the grain) perhaps spoilt during 

 processing, accidentally lost or deliberately 

 discarded, with cereal processing by-products (the 

 weeds and chaff) . These remains might have been 

 deliberately burnt on fires as waste or as fuel, or 

 accidentally lost. 



The mineralised assemblages 

 Mineralisation occurs when the organic component 

 of a seed or plant item is replaced by inorganic 

 deposits, usually calcium phosphate (Green 1981; 

 Carruthers 1991). Medieval examples are well 

 attested and indicate that the process most 

 commonly occurs in cesspits or garderobes where 

 phosphate particularly, and also calcium, both 

 derived from faecal material would be present in 

 solution in high concentrations. Animal bones might 

 also provide a source of calcium phosphate, as might 

 some plant material. It is also likely that particular 

 soil types, most obviously chalk, would be a 

 contributory factor in the mineralisation process. 

 Iron Age examples are less well documented, 

 although examples do exist from the Devizes area 

 and more widely in Wiltshire and in Hampshire. In 

 particular a large deposit of mineralised material 

 was recovered from a midden at Potterne 

 (Carruthers 1991, 2000). The plant remains 

 recovered from Potterne were almost entirely weeds 

 from waste-ground type habitats. Furthermore 

 there was large-scale mineralisation throughout an 

 extensive lm deep layer with a distinct mineral- 

 concreted layer beneath which only rootlets were 



preserved and almost no seeds. The deposits were 

 interpreted as representing in situ mineralised 

 preservation and demonstrate that the process can 

 occur in a greater range of conditions and contexts 

 than previously thought. 



Unlike characteristic medieval cesspit deposits, 

 the Brickley Lane assemblages contain few potential 

 food items other than the brassica seeds with only 

 one fruit seed (the possible apple) and no bran 

 fragments, and there are no mineralised concretions. 

 The overall volume of mineralised material is 

 actually very small despite the number of actual 

 seeds being high. The sewage fly identified would 

 live in sewage material, accumulations of animal 

 dung or other decaying organic matter. The brassica, 

 and perhaps the Sambucus nigra seeds identified 

 in the samples could be derived from human faecal 

 material, while the arable weeds, particularly 

 Lithospermum arvense could have been eaten with 

 contaminated bread. As only intact seeds tend to 

 become mineralised the absence of mineralised 

 cereal grains in a cesspit is unsurprising. Some 

 human sewage may therefore be present in the 

 sample. Some of the ruderal species may have been 

 growing within or on a midden. Equally some 

 animal dung may be represented although there are 

 no grasses characteristic of grazed land. So, while 

 some human sewage might be present, the pit does 

 not have the characteristics of a cesspit. It is more 

 likely that the backfill of the pit contained some 

 sewage and/or manure/midden type material as well 

 as other re-deposited refuse including the charred 

 cereal processing by-products. 



Similar material was recovered from middle-late 

 Iron Age deposits recovered from beehive pits at 

 Lains Farm in Hampshire (Carruthers 1992). In 

 the Danebury Environs project (Campbell 2000) 

 mineralised remains were recovered from several 

 features of early to mid-Iron Age date but were 

 absent from Late Iron Age deposits. Campbell 

 (2000, 58) suggests that in the Early Iron Age faecal 

 and other waste was being disposed of in pits rather 

 than being deposited on middens, as at Bronze Age 

 Potterne. She speculated that by the late Iron Age 

 the need to manure the fields resulted in the material 

 going straight out on to the land. The Brickley Lane 

 material is late in date however, so would suggest 

 that such material was still being disposed of in pits 

 in the area. It is possible that the occurrence of 

 prehistoric mineralised material in the area from 

 the late Bronze Age onwards is itself because of a 

 necessity to collect manure. The occurrence of such 

 material in the region in the Late Bronze Age and 



