Principal : Christine Shaw
With the death of Peter Reynolds, a review of his work has been carried out and a summary of the history and results from this Project is given here, primarily for the benefit of more recent entrants to this field who may be unaware of the extent of his work, much of which remains unpublished or is no longer available in print.
Peter has sometimes been called the "Father of the Roundhouse" but it should be remembered that his formal entry to the world of archaeology was through a PhD on the topic of this page. Naturally, his PhD, which is not publically available, covered the background to the presence of underground silos [called pits by many and even by Reynolds (1986), as shorthand, but, in the wider context, it has to be remembered that pit is also used of an open hole] in the archaeological record but the real contribution was through his experimental work on the storage performance of such silos and his measurements which went on to show why they worked.
Reynolds reported on this programme in four Butser Ancient Farm Project Year Books (1986 - 89) and this page draws on them heavily. Fortunately the first gives an overview of the work leading up to and including his PhD.
The crucial result of all is perhaps that :
After sixteen years of continuous successive use to store cereals, the grain stored in the experimental pits at Little Butser had as high a germinability (in excess of 95%) in the last year as in any year before. Reynolds considered this long enough to demonstrate the feasibility of use of such underground pits for grain storage as an alternative to above-ground methods. The high germinability, in his view, strongly suggested they were indeed used as stores for seed for planting.
Reynolds (1986) points out that Bersu (1940) was the first to hypothesise the use of at least some underground pits as grain stores and even before his thesis (1978) Reynolds was exploring the concept (1967, 1969, 1974).
To be completed
References
Bersu, G 1940 "Excavations at Little Woodbury, Wiltshire" Proc. Prehist. Soc., 6 , 30-111
Reynolds P J 1967 "Experiments in Iron Age Agriculture", Trans.Bristol & Glocs. Arch. Soc., 86 , 60-73
Reynolds P J 1969 "Experiments in Iron Age Agriculture", Trans. Bristol & Glocs. Arch.Soc., 88 , 29-33
Reynolds P J 1974 "Experimental Iron Age Storage Pits : an interim report", Proc. Prehist. Soc., 40 , 118-131
Reynolds P J 1978 "The Experimental Storage of Grain in Underground Silos", Leicester University UK - unpub. Ph.D thesis
Reynolds P J 1979 "A general report of Underground Grain Storage Experiments at the Butser Ancient Farm Research Project, Les Techniques de Conservation des Grains a Long Terme, 1 , Paris, C.N.R.S. 70-88
The 1989 Year Book refers to a forthcoming publication on this topic for the years 1972 - 1988. We are currently seeking the reference for it.
Created 01 August 2001 - Updated 01 February 2003