Plant Macrofossils

Charred plant remains included charred cereal grains and chaff together with other crop plants, such as legumes, and weed seeds. Charred plant remains have been found throughout the occupation of the town usually together with animal bones and fish remains as domestic rubbish. Occasionally larger groups of charred plant remains have been found including cereal chaff used as fuel in a Roman period corn drier at Norfolk Street villa (Jones 1982) and charred hay from a Roman pit at Causeway Lane (Monckton 1999a) providing evidence of other activities within the town. Such deposits were not found here and few remains were found in the samples from Roman contexts. In contrast abundant grain deposits of medieval to post-medieval date were found here. These were quite unlike the samples from the town at the time, which were thought to represent only domestic activity. Other plant remains were preserved by mineralization caused by impregnation with calcium salts, this occurs in such conditions as found in cesspits, these were found here as in the town. The remains included fruit stones and pips, which had been eaten and deposited in the pit as sewage. These were found with fish bone from food consumed, as well as fly puparia from the insects living in the cesspits. Parasite eggs of worms of the human gut were found by testing these deposits, confirming the presence of sewage. Hence these remains show the presence of cesspits and give evidence of domestic activity and diet in the past. These remains were considered together over the phases of the site from Roman to post-medieval to help to interpret the activities on the site in the past. [Taken from the introduction]