Identifying Crop Rotation during the Early Medieval Period in England: Charring Temperature, Contamination and Isotopic Boundaries

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Challenges and Future Directions in Plant Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Farming practice changed in Medieval England, allowing a dramatic increase in cereal production. Historical documents describe 13th century agricultural practices as open-field collective farming including three-field crop rotation and use of the heavy plough. Our research investigates how and when such changes took place, using stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values to assess crop rotation practices. Wheat, barley, oats and rye form the main crops. Crop rotation – i.e. consistency of growing conditions among species grown in annual rotation – is investigated through inter-species comparison from the same archaeological sequences. Temporal changes are examined via comparison of the same species over time.

The effects of charring on rye and oat grain δ13C and δ15N values are unknown. Therefore, we undertook experimentation to assess charring effects, as previously done for wheats and barleys. Furthermore, due to limited Early Medieval archaeobotanical material, some grains exceed the 260°C maximum charring temperature used previously; the new charring experiments examine the effect of higher temperatures on δ13C and δ15N values. However, using grains charred at higher temperatures, coupled with wet soils, introduces additional contamination issues that require appropriate screening before analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Challenges and Future Directions in Plant Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24137