The Royal Kitchen Garden at Stromsholm Castle: Evaluating Archaeological Methods

Frost, Katarina; Jonsson, Kristina; Persson, Kjell

doi:10.2307/4150385

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Macrofossils of garden plants have been found in many studies as in Britain (Dickson 1994). In the last ten years increasingly more research in garden archaeology in Nordic countries has been carried out (Frost et al 2004;Moe et al 2006;Lindeblad 2010;Andréasson and Pettersson 2014). However, the relatively scarce record of garden archaeobotanical research to date suggests room for improvement in the applicability of such approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Plant remains from the early modern garden of the manor of Kumpula, Helsinki, Finland: an alternative sampling method for macrofossil analysis

Alanko

Oinonen

Schulman

2015

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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Garden history can be investigated through archaeobotanical research. This paper discusses the plant remains which were obtained from the soil of the historical garden of the manor of Kumpula in Helsinki, Finland. This study was an experiment to enable macrofossil analysis without archaeological excavations. The aim was to develop an alternative method for sampling for macrofossils also including radiocarbon dates, and to evaluate the usability, cost and functionality of this method. The character of the garden was also considered. The soil samples for macrofossil analysis were collected from the garden from three to eight different levels using an end-filling open-ended sampler. A total of 38 one litre soil samples from eight different pits yielded 2,036 identified macrofossils, mostly seeds. These comprised 63 different taxa, of which 26 were identified to species level with certainty. Taxa with more than 25 seeds found were Chelidonium majus, Chenopodium spp., Juncus spp., Rubus idaeus, Sambucus racemosa and Urtica dioica. Important species were Secale cereale and Hordeum vulgare. Nine AMS radiocarbon dates were obtained from macrofossil material from four different pits, giving results ranging from 1120-920 cal BC to cal AD 1680-1930 for charred wood, and from cal AD 1450-1640 to 1640-1930 for charred grains of Secale cereale and seeds of Chenopodium album. The sampling method proved to work reasonably well, considering the limitations of the sample size.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%