Tiny plant and animal remains recovered through careful processing of soil samples collected during excavation help our environmental archaeologists to piece together past environments and economies. In this instalment of our #IckyArchaeology blog series, our Environmental Archaeologist Sander Aerts introduces us to grain pests who made their way to Britain by hitching a lift with the Roman army.
It can happen to the best of us, and in the cleanest of houses. We spot some movement in our kitchen cupboard, or tiny critters float to the top of our breakfast cereal as we pour the milk in. Whether we want it or not, we share our houses with a large number of invertebrate housemates. It is just one of the many things the Romans brought to Britain.
Grain pests, including beetles, mites and moths, have a cosmopolitan distribution, although these animals mostly do not occur outdoors. They are what we call obligatory synanthropes; animals that cannot live without man-made environments. Because they are biologically designed to live in dry, warm circumstances, we have created homes for them inside our own homes, far away from their natural habitat.
For this reason, grain pests have been able to hitchhike along with people from Near Eastern and Mediterranean regions to colder and wetter regions. Unknowingly, they made their way to the north since the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic. Soon they managed to establish themselves in grain storages and homes in continental Europe, but failed to cross over to the British Isles. It appeared that their convenient position sheltered them from any harmful insects making the journey. It wasn’t until the Roman conquest in AD43 that a sudden infestation of grain pests took place. Finally, they were able to cross the North Sea by getting lifts on the grain supplies from the Roman army.
