Survival of cereals and hazelnuts


In his post "Ireland, A Case Study in transporting Flora and Fauna" the lovely expert Mr. PRD wrote:
"In england there was simultaneously the use of
cattle and hazelnuts which detractors say is
because triticeae was not adequately preserved."

Well, here is the explanation by 'detractor'
Professor Glynis Jones. I hope she and Oxbow will
forgive me for using this for educational purposes.

*Factors affecting the survival of cereals and hazelnuts*

"Most of the evidence for wild plant foods in
Neolithic Britain is provided by the presence of
hazelnut shell, just as most of the evidence for
cultivation comes from cereal grains. Like
previous reviews of the evidence, therefore, this
discussion will concentrate on cereals and
hazelnuts, while recognising that other plants
such as wild crab apple, tubers and cultivated
pulses also played a part in Neolithic diet.
Furthermore, as most of the evidence for Neolithic
plant use in Britain comes from charred remains,
the following will consider preservation by charring
only. Even for sieved or floated deposits, there are three
important differences to note when comparing
quantities of hazelnut and cereal:
1. the by-product from eating hazelnuts is the
nutshell whereas the by-product from eating
cereals is chaff and straw;
2. hazelnut shell has few uses other than for fuel
while chaff and straw have many other uses
(e.g. as fodder or building material);
3. nutshell survives well when exposed to fire
whereas chaff and straw survive poorly.

The implications of these differences will be
considered in turn.

Since nutshell is a by-product of consumption, it
is likely either to be discarded (possibly by
throwing into household fires) or deliberately used
as fuel or kindling. Frequent, recurrent burning of
small or large quantities of nutshell is therefore to
be expected in any community regularly
consuming hazelnuts and using fires for cooking
etc.. Cereal grains, on the other hand, are the
part of the plant normally eaten and so the real
surprise is that they are ever burnt at all. When
they are, it is likely to be by accident, as when a
building containing stored grain is burnt down or
when accidents occur during food preparation or
earlier stages of crop processing (e.g. if grain is
being dried for dehusking, storage or malting).
Charred cereal grains are therefore the exception
rather than the rule and can be expected relatively
rarely even in communities dependent on cereals
as their staple food.

The cereal by-products equivalent to nutshell are
chaff and straw, and there is a number of reasons
why these components may never reach
household fires. Straw, and the rachis of free-
threshing cereals such as barley, are removed at
an early stage of processing and are a valuable
source of fodder, as well as bedding, for domestic
animals. As such, they may never be brought
onto site and, even if they are used to feed stalled
animals, there is no reason why they should
come into contact with household fires.
Equally the glume bases of wheats such as
emmer, which are removed during later
dehusking, may well arrive on site but, while still
surrounding the grain, are unlikely to be burned
unless by accident and, after dehusking, may
also be used for fodder etc.. It is true that both
cereal chaff and straw may be used as kindling
for fires but this is just one amongst many uses.
Hazelnut shell, on the other hand, may be used
as an intentional or unintentional fuel but has few,
if any, other uses. Its chances of reaching
household fires are therefore greater.

Once in contact with fire the hard, dense shell of
hazelnuts is likely to be converted to carbon and
therefore preserved in a charred state. Its greater
density also increases the chances of shell
fragments falling through the ashes to be
preserved at the base of the fire from where they
are later cleaned out and thrown away The lighter,
more flimsy chaff of cereals is likely to be held
higher in the fire and so is more likely to be burnt
to ash, with the denser glume bases standing the
best chance of survival . Indeed, charring
experiments have shown that chaff (including the
glume bases of glume wheats) and straw survive
burning less well than the denser cereals grains
(which are in turn not as dense as hazelnut shell).

These three factors (and, on unsieved sites, the
recovery bias) make any direct comparison of the
relative quantities of hazelnuts and cereals
meaningless."

Source
Glynis Jones, 2000
"Evaluating the importance of cultivating and
collecting in Neolitic Britain"
In: A.S. Fairbairn (ed) "Plants in Neolithic Britain and beyond"
NSG Seminar Papers 5. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
pp 79-84. The quote is from pp 80-81

More on Glynis Jones http://tinyurl.com/puu6g

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p.a.

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