Pignut tubers from a Bronze Age cremation at Barrow Hills, Oxfordshire, and the importance of vegetable tubers in the prehistoric period

Abstract

Identifiable remains of archaeological tubers have been rare. Tubers of a species of pignut, Conopodium majus Loret. or Bunium bulbocastanum L., were found in a Bronze Age ritual context in Oxfordshire and were identifiable on the basis of gross morphology. They provide evidence of an edible species of tuber associated with human activity at a period when collection of wild foods was probably still of considerable economic importance.