Wood charcoals and other plant remains from Llwyn Bryn-dinas

Extract

This limited study was principally concerned with the identification of wood charcoal from the metal-working floor and bowl-hearths, in order to identify the timber species exploited for fuel in the metal-working process, although other charred plant remains present in the samples were also identified.

Samples from site had previously been treated to extract the charred material and separate the cereal and weed seed remains from the charcoal present.² A sample of plant remains taken from the sealed soil profile (38) beneath the rampart was also examined; it contained small-seeded legume species, cuscuta, grass rhizomes and fungal sclerotia and cleistothecia, which might be found in any soil.

Identification of a piece of wood charcoal requires its fracture in three planes (Leney and Casteel 1975). The fragments thus obtained were examined under an epi-illuminating microscope and identified by comparison with modern charred reference material and an atlas of wood anatomy (Schweingruber 1982). The minimum size of charcoal piece from which the three planes of fracture could be obtained was relatively large, so that many of the pieces in the samples were too small to be analysed. All samples contained at least twenty identifiable pieces, however, mainly of twig or branch wood.