There are several scientific techniques we can use to build up a picture of the ancient landscape. We check for tiny organic remains like grains, seeds or even snail shells. By understanding the natural habitat of the different species of plants and animals we find, we can understand what the local environment was like.
This work can be very specific – at one settlement our environmental archaeologists identified a plant called ‘henbane’. We know that henbane loves to grow in manure and rubbish pits, so by working out the location and time period this henbane was growing, we knew when and where smelly piles of waste were placed.
It’s clear that by the Iron Age, most of this area was already cleared and being used as farmland, as the sorts of plants that can be identified from pollen include grasses, buttercups, and rushes. We didn’t find every type of crop they grew, but they certainly produced a lot of grain. We identified spelt and wheat grains at one of our settlements.
It's not just the small stuff we were looking for either. In another Iron Age settlement, in a man-made ditch, we found the skeleton of a fox. By recording the big and small pieces of evidence we built up a picture of the local plants and animals surrounding these ancient settlements.
