Lyminge archaeobotany

A chance online link led to a short paper on recent archaeological digs at Lyminge, that has some fascinating descriptions of botanical finds from the early Medieval period.

The paper Seeds and status: the archaeobotany of monastic Lyminge is by Mark McKerracher (2017).  The relevant paragraphs on botanical diversity are worth repeating in full.

The Lyminge Archaeological Project has reaped a tantalizingly rich harvest of archaeobotanical data. In each season of excavation from 2008 to 2014, bulk soil samples have been taken...   the presence at monastic Lyminge of several relatively unusual plant species is notable.

Anglo-Saxon archaeobotany as a whole is fairly monotonous in character. Evidence of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices is minimal in the extreme, and compares very poorly with the panoply of exotic introductions in the Romano-British record, a disparity not entirely attributable to differential preservation biases.

While hulled barley remained commonplace, the Roman preference for spelt wheat gave way – apparently quite abruptly – to an Anglo-Saxon emphasis upon bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), which has prevailed in English wheat cultivation ever since.

The repeating wallpaper of charred bread-type wheat and hulled barley is indeed the botanical backdrop to many Anglo-Saxon sites. Yet while cereals inevitably dominate the assemblage from monastic Lyminge, they are here accompanied by an unusual diversity of other possible taxa – edible, medicinal or otherwise useful – which are either absent or exceedingly rare elsewhere in this period. 

True, there are stray occurrences of Celtic bean (Vicia faba L.) and garden pea (Pisum sativum L.) in seventh-century contexts at Lyminge. But it is the eighth and ninth centuries that herald a veritable feast of variety: flax (Linum usitatissimum L.), apple/pear (Malus L./Pyrus L.), plum/sloe (Prunus L.), elder (Sambucus nigra L.), blackberry (Rubus fruticosus L. agg.), cherry (Prunus avium L.), opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.), hemlock (Conium maculatum L.), and tentative identifications of black mustard (Brassica nigra L.), damson (Prunus domestica ssp. insititia (L.) Bonnier & Layens) and grape (Vitis vinifera L.).

Background video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcZrqh7zau8