Food in an early Irish monastery

A beautiful new volume details the results of excavations at the early medieval monastery of High Island, off the west coast of Co. Galway, Ireland (Scally 2014). Ancient remains of many stone structures have survived quite well here because the island is hard to access and has long been uninhabited. Over the years, the monastery has fallen into a ruinous state. The excavations, directed by Georgina Scally, took place between 1995 and 2002 in conjunction with extensive conservation works carried out by the National Monuments Service. Just under half of the area within the monastic enclosure was excavated. Stone-built domestic huts were identified around the church, and other remains included stone structures, graves, extensive paved areas, and elaborate drainage and water collection features. As well as the excavation results, the volume contains contributions from many experts on associated historic sources, artefacts, burials and environmental remains. I wrote a section on the plant remains recovered from the excavations (McClatchie 2014), revealing the types of foods that were eaten at the monastery.

Charred plant remains were present in several areas at High Island: in the vicinity of the domestic huts and the extended monastic enclosure, as well as around the church and other areas. Barley was the predominant cereal type (mainly six-row hulled barley), with oat also present. These crops were used by the island’s inhabitants over several centuries, during occupation of the monastery (AD eighth to late-twelfth/early-thirteenth century) and re-occupation of the island after the decline of the monastery (late-twelfth/early-thirteenth to mid-fifteenth century). The presence of an ancient horizontal water-mill outside the monastic enclosure at High Island underlines the importance of cereals at this location; the water-mill would have enabled large-scale processing of cereals. Cereals may also have been processed on a smaller scale using the rotary-quern and dished grinding-stones that were found.

 

The predominance of barley and oat at High Island reflects a more general trend that can be detected at other early medieval sites throughout Ireland, AD 400-1150 (McCormick et al. 2014). During the earlier part of the medieval period (post-AD 1150), barley and oat continued to be important, particularly in areas beyond Anglo-Norman control (McClatchie 2003). The cultivation of barley is relatively low-risk, as barley will yield at least part of its crop even after a poor season. Barley will also grow equally well on light and heavy soils. Oat is well suited to the humid and wet Irish climate, and will tolerate poorer soils that may have discouraged the cultivation of other cereal types.

Barley

A previous blog entry explored how oat was used to produce a variety of foods and drinks. What was barley used for? In modern times, barley is often grown for brewing, and it is possible that brewing was being carried out at the High Island monastery. But the absence of grains that displayed signs of malting (malted grains can often be identified by the presence of a 'sprouted' embryo) means that the barley here may have been used in other products. Documentary sources of the early medieval period regularly list bread as one of the main foods consumed in monastic diets, and where cereal type is mentioned, the bread is often made of barley (Kelly 1997; Sexton 1998; Murray et al. 2004). Barley flour produces a coarse, dense loaf, in keeping with the penitential existence associated with monasteries. Tigernach of Clones, Co. Monaghan, for example, is said to have lived exclusively on barley bread, water-cress and hot water (Kelly 1997). Documentary sources were often concerned with issues of fasting and dietary penance, and it is possible that extreme eating regimes, like Tigernach’s mentioned above, were not continually observed at all monasteries (Murray et al. 2004). But the importance of barley in the monastic diet, as noted in the early documentary sources, is supported by the archaeobotanical evidence from High Island.

For further reading on the High Island plant remains and archaeology, you can purchase the newly published volume here.

References

Kelly F (1997) Early Irish farming: a study based mainly on the law-texts of the 7th and 8^th centuries AD. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

McClatchie M (2003) Section 12: the plant remains. In: RM Cleary, MF Hurley (eds), Cork city excavations 1984-2000, pp 391-413. Cork: Cork City Council.

McClatchie M (2014) Non-wood plant macro-remains. In: G Scally, High Island (Ardoileán), Co. Galway: excavation of an early medieval monastery, pp. 261-269. Archaeological Monograph Series: 10. Dublin: Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

McCormick F, Kerr TR, McClatchie M, O'Sullivan A (2014) Early medieval agriculture,livestock and cereal production in Ireland, AD 400-1100. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 2647. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Murray E, McCormick F. Plunkett G (2004) The food economies of Atlantic island monasteries: the documentary and archaeo-environmental evidence. Environmental Archaeology 9(2): 179-188.

Scally G (2014) High Island (Ardoileán), Co. Galway: excavation of an early medieval monastery. Archaeological Monograph Series: 10. Dublin: Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

Sexton R (1998) Porridges, gruels and breads: the cereal foodstuffs of Early Medieval Ireland. In: MA Monk, J Sheehan (eds), Early Medieval Munster: archaeology, history and society, pp 76-86. Cork: Cork University Press.

Can water-lilies provide a useful food?

In their efforts to follow a healthier lifestyle, many people I know are looking to the past to emulate more ‘natural’ ways of eating.  The ‘paleo diet’, for example, is based on foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, which stretch from more than two million years ago up to the introduction of farming. A follower of the paleo diet often focuses on eating meats, seafood, non-starchy vegetables and nuts.

White water-lily (image by Opuntia via WikimediaCommons)

But archaeological evidence indicates that hunter-gatherers ate a much wider variety of plants than that indicated by the paleo diet. For example, there is extensive archaeological evidence to indicate that our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate starch-rich roots and tubers of various plants (Warren et al. 2014). Hunter-gatherers in Ireland also ate the seeds of plants that we would rarely consider to be food nowadays. A good example of this is the water-lily, a plant that is beautiful to look at, but also has many uses.

Seeds of Nymphaea alba L. (white water-lily) and Nuphar lutea (L.) Sm. (yellow water-lily) have been discovered at several excavations of hunter-gatherer (Mesolithic) settlements in Ireland (Warren et al. 2014). More than 2,000 waterlogged white water-lily seeds were found at Clowanstown, Co. Meath, while several thousand waterlogged yellow water-lily seeds were recorded from Lough Kinale, Co. Longford, in a hollow that may represent a processing or storage area. Although water-lilies naturally produce large numbers of seeds, the presence of water-lily seeds alongside other known foods in archaeological deposits, and the fact that they are sometimes found in a charred state, suggests human intervention. Charred examples include the white water-lily seeds found in a hearth pit at Mount Sandel, Co. Derry.

Yellow water-lily (image via Wikimedia Commons)

Citing the extensive consumption of yellow water-lily seeds by indigenous peoples of North America, Mears and Hillman (2007) have detailed the process of preparing water-lily seeds for consumption, which involves gathering capsules, fermenting in water (perhaps in a lakeside pit), followed by cleaning of the seeds, dehusking, winnowing, parching, grinding and then roasting. The process takes a minimum of two weeks, highlighting the extensive time involved in processing of these plants. I have not yet had the opportunity of trying out this process myself, but I do hope to do so in the coming months!

Water-lily seeds can also be used in other ways. The seeds can be fried in fat to make a kind of popcorn (Monk and Pals 1985), used as an insect repellent and in dyeing (Mac Coitir 2006), and the rhizomes may also be edible. Perhaps the next time you look at water-lilies, as well as appreciating their beauty, you will also consider the many uses water-lilies had for past societies, particularly as a food.

References

Mac Coitir N (2006) Irish wild plants: myths, legend and folklore. Collins Press, Cork 

Mears R, Hillman GC (2007) Wild food. Hodder and Stoughton, London

Monk MA, Pals JP (1985) Part 2: charred plant remains. In: Woodman PC, Excavations at Mount Sandel 1973-1977, pp. 79-81. HMSO, Belfast

Warren G, Davis S, McClatchie M, Sands S (2014) The potential role of humans in structuring the wooded landscapes of Mesolithic Ireland: a review of data and discussion of approaches. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 23(5):629-646

An archaeological find of spelt wheat in Ireland

I was reminded recently of an article that I wrote for Seanda, the magazine from the National Roads Authority (NRA) Archaeology section in Ireland (McClatchie 2011). The article presented results from the excavation of an archaeological site at Baysrath, Co. Kilkenny. The site was discovered when a new road was being designed and constructed, and it was found to contain a variety of settlement, industrial and funerary features. The excavation was carried out under the direction of archaeologist John Channing of Valerie J. Keeley Ltd, and I undertook the examination of preserved plant remains from the site.

Charred grains of spelt wheat, Baysrath

One of the most interesting finds at Baysrath was the discovery of substantial spelt wheat deposits in two different areas of the site. Spelt wheat chaff and grains were found in a post-hole located in an area of Iron Age activity (700 BC – AD 400). Spelt wheat grains and chaff were also found in a T-shaped drying kiln, and the grains were radiocarbon dated to the transition between the Iron Age and early medieval period (AD 400-1150). These two features contained one of the largest spelt wheat assemblages ever found in Ireland. Spelt wheat assemblages of comparable size are more often found at Iron Age and Roman archaeological sites in Britain. Interestingly, one of the archaeological features at Baysrath containing spelt wheat, the T-shaped drying kiln, is rare in Ireland. T-shaped drying kilns are more commonly recorded in Roman Britain, and the presence of this particular kiln in Ireland may reflect links across the Irish Sea at this time.

Charred chaff fragments of spelt wheat, Baysrath

The consumption of spelt wheat has seen a revival in Ireland during recent years. Although spelt wheat (Triticum spelta L.) is closely related to bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), modern spelt wheat food-products are often less processed than bread-wheat products, which may explain why spelt wheat is viewed as more of a ‘health food’.

Spelt wheat can tolerate poorer soils and less intensive management systems than the more commonly grown bread wheat, which is reflected in the increasing popularity of spelt wheat among organic growers.

There is also an important difference in how grain is separated from chaff in each case. Bread wheat is a free-threshing wheat and is easily separated from its enclosing chaff. Spelt wheat is, by contrast, a hulled wheat, whereby the chaff is fixed firmly to the grain and is therefore more difficult to remove. Although de-husking would have been a time-consuming activity in the past, spelt wheat chaff does give the grains protection in the field and in storage, providing a useful barrier against water and insect damage.

Archaeological evidence indicates that spelt wheat was introduced into Ireland during the Bronze Age (2500-700 BC), several thousand years after the introduction of other cereals, such as emmer wheat and barley. Spelt wheat had many potential uses, including its incorporation into food products, such as bread and gruels, as well as in brewing and perhaps as animal fodder.

But it seems that spelt wheat was only ever a minor crop in Ireland’s past. The discovery of a large spelt wheat assemblage from Baysrath is important because there are very few substantial finds of spelt wheat from archaeological sites in Ireland. Indeed, I would argue that spelt wheat is probably more popular in modern Ireland than it has been at any stage in Ireland’s past!

Reference

McClatchie M (2011) A long tradition of cereal production. Seanda 6: 8-10.