Acta Palaeobotanica 39(1): 137-169, 1999

The use of plant resources in the Early Centuries Ad on the basis of plant macroremains from the Roman Iron Age site at Wąsosz Górny, near Kłobuck, Central Poland.

Summary: Three pits from the Roman Iron Age site at Wąsosz Górny differed in the composition of their plant remains. Cultivated plants were represented by Avena sativa, Hordeum vulgare, Linum usitatissimum, Panicum miliaceum, Pisum sativum, Secale cereale and Triticum spelta. Pit 17 from the Late Roman Period included, in addition to cultivated plants, a great number of weed species, which provide an insight into the kind of arable farming practised at the time. The use of a field rotation system with fallowing was very likely. With the aid of ecological index analysis a picture of the kinds of soil used for the cultivation can be built up. Comparison of the ecological analysis of weeds with the cultivated plant composition in pit 17 showed that spring barley was probably cultivated on rendzinas; pea and oat, probably sown as a mixture, could have been cultivated on light, more acid soils (sandy podsolic soils); rye could have been grown on poor soil, or as a mixture with spelt on fertile, loamy almost neutral soil. Pit 17 contained some species not previously recorded from the Roman Iron Age in Poland, Chenopodium ficifolium, Dianthus armeria, Fragaria vesca, Verbena officinalis, Centaurea phrygia/C. stoebe and Trifolium arvense/T. dubium.

Keywords: archaeobotany, Roman Iron Age, charred remains, cultivated plants, weeds, Poland