Contents of a storage pit from late Bronze Age Stillfried, Austria: another record of the "new" glume wheat

Abstract

Since Jones et al. (2000) drew attention to a "new" type of glume wheat from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in northern Greece, several finds of this morphologically distinct tetraploid wheat form have been made across central and southeastern Europe. Charred remains of this wheat, dating from 819–1031 cal b.c., have also been discovered in a storage pit at late Bronze Age Stillfried, eastern Austria. As both chaff and grains were found, it was not only possible to match the diagnostic features of the spikelet bases to the "new" form, but also to examine the grains, which are strikingly long, slender and flat. A dorsal ridge is absent and there is no hump above the embryo. The embryo angle is relatively low and compression lines are much more distinct. Within the Stillfried store "new" glume wheat grains were also easily separable from two-grained einkorn and spelt grains. The morphology of the grains is not inconsistent with the suggestion that the "new" type glume wheat might correspond to modern Triticum timopheevi. In Stillfried "new" glume wheat was grown as a winter crop, and it seems to have been cultivated as a maslin (mixed crop) together with T. monococcum (einkorn).