Project Consultant : Christine Shaw
Grain Storage Pit Studies
Such studies as those reported here formed one of the early cornerstones of Peter Reynolds' research at Butser Ancient Farm.
The paper below was published in J.stored Prod. Res. Vol 19 No 4 pp 163-171 1983 published by Pergammon Press. The paper is the most detailed presentation of the work undertaken on this topic at Butser Ancient Farm from 1972 - 1976 and complements the information given in the corresponding Year Books. These Year Books were not widely taken up, which makes this paper doubly important.
The sort of incidental information that tends to get forgotten, and which caught the Webmaster's eye while scanning the paper, is that the beehive shaped pit was still in use in Iran at the time of this work. Also, it was observed at Butser that an important weed Galium aparine L. was only found in autumn sown crops. The significance of this is that carbonised seeds of that weed are found on archaeological sites, thus adding weight to the other arguments that autumn sowing was surely practised in the Iron Age.
Created 09 November 2009 - Updated 09 November 2009