Anglo-Saxon Crops and Weeds: A Case Study in Quantitative Archaeobotany

Mark McKerracher uses charred crops and weeds to investigate major changes in Anglo-Saxon farming between the seventh and ninth centuries. Rather than relying on impressionistic comparisons between sites, he applies a standardised set of repeatable quantitative methods to archaeobotanical assemblages, allowing patterns in crop husbandry to be tested more systematically.

Weeds mattered because they grew among cereal crops and left traces of the conditions in which those crops were raised. Reading them alongside the grains, McKerracher finds evidence for farming that became more specialised and better adapted to local environments, helping to explain how larger surpluses were achieved in the Mid-Saxon period. He sets out the analyses and underlying data so that others can test the findings or compare them with evidence from different sites. Even a handful of charred seeds can raise questions about the workings of an early medieval economy.