Too young for tinder? The palaeoecological context and possible function of subfossil fungi (basidiomes) found in the settlement from the Early Iron Age in Podłęże, S Poland

Abstract

Two well-preserved fungal remains (basidiomes of polypores Fomes fomentarius and Fomitopsis pinicola) were found in a fossil peatbog in Podłęże, near Kraków (S Poland), in the context of culture layers dated to the Early Iron Age (mid-1st millennium BCE). Their context, age, and the cause of their occurrence in peat, which is exceptional, are discussed. Due to the location on the outskirts of an inhabited prehistoric settlement and because of the traces of detachment of the upper part in the Fomes fomentarius basidiocarp, we argue for their deposition in the peat layer via a human action. The host trees, however, could have grown in situ, since a drainage episode enabled the peatbog to be overgrown by sparse riparian forest at the onset of the Subatlantic. The possible use of the F. fomentarius fragment as tinder is discussed against the limited evidence of such use from later European prehistory.