JISCMail - ARCHAEOBOTANY Archives

Hi Anaya , it so happens this article is online for free:

isn't the internet wonderful,

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Sarpaki Anaya

To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2007 6:47 PM

Subject: Re: cess pit mineralised material

Naomi hello and anyone out there,

Yes, there is a possibility that this material could be from incompletely digested food....although I do not know how one could define this!! I have no idea of anyone having done experiments such as archaeozoologists have done!! Yet, what makes me think it is partly digested is the shape of legumes..some of which seem to have been "bitten"....also seeds which seem like fig seeds have concretions around looking like mineralised flesh (?)....

Regarding the rodents..yes, I seem to have a few bones...maybe some individuals...I wonder whether "methane" which would exist in these sewares would get the rodents "high" to a point to loose consciousness!!...and drown...

Thank you for Green's ref. I also traced another ref. Pelling, R.2000a The charred and mineralised plant remains.In B.M.Charles, et al., A bronze Age ditch and Iron Age Settlement at Elms Farm, Humberstore, Licester. Trasactions of Leicestershire Arch.Hist. Society 74: 207-213. I cannot trace it here in Crete so if the author or anyone else who has access to a full pdf. has it I would be very grateful.

It is fun....from burnt dung to human dung.....!!

Thank you for the response,

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Naomi Miller

To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">The archaeobotany mailing list ; [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Sarpaki Anaya

Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2007 7:07 PM

Subject: Re: cess pit mineralised material

Is there any possiblity that the material is from incompletely digested food?

Basis for this suggestion:

My favorite deposit ever had lots of mineralized seeds from a straight-sided pit that had a diameter of about 1 meter, was several meters deep (like a well), the soil had a greenish hue. There were hundreds of mineralized grape seeds, many identifiable wheat and barley bits (also mineralized, looking partly 'digested'), perfectly preserved rodent bones representing entire skeletons (including delicate skulls floating to the top of the flot. tank), and a high concentration of smooth pebbles that easily fit in a hand.

The explanation was latrine (form; chemistry [see Green 1979]; grape seeds–in one end out the other; wheat and barley–perhaps eaten as groats; drowned rodents (like the LaBrea tarpit–once they fell in, no other animal was able to fish them out). As for the stones, though he refused to be credited for the idea, my diss. advisor suggested use as ancient 'toilet paper'.

ref.: Economy and Environment at Malyan, a Third Millennium B.C. Urban Center in Southern Iran (1982). Ph.D. diss., U of Michigan, Ann Arbor, pp. 363-364 and data tables.

I alluded to this deposit in Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 1:45-47 (1984), "The Interpretation of Some Carbonized Cereal Remains as Remnants of Dung Cake Fuel." It was interesting that the proportion of wheat to barley in the latrine deposit was exactly opposite of the charred remains (reasonable interpretation: remains of human food vs. burned dung)

1979 Phosphatic Mineralization of Seeds from Archaeological Sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 6:279-284.

On Oct 26, 2007, at 12:24 PM, Sarpaki Anaya wrote:

I am looking at few samples from a Minoan sewage at the site of Malia in Crete and I am quite baffled by what I see......what seems to me to be mineralised seeds, such as grape etc. However, legume seeds seem to also have been mineralised and also fragments of "pods". As my experience is with charred material I find quite difficult to "decipher" these forms. I would therefore appreciate to have any references which might help me with these. If anybody is working on cess pits/sewage mineralised material or has published on these, I would very much appreciate to have their contact address and/or references.

Thank you for all the help,

Anaya

_____________

Dr Anaya.Sarpaki
Independent scholar
137 Tsikalaria,
73200 Souda - Chania, Crete.
Tel: +30 28210 81641
Fax: +30 28210 28452
[log in to unmask]

-------------------------------------

Naomi F. Miller

University of Pennsylvania Museum

MASCA-Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology

3260 South Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

--------------------------------------

tel: (215) 898 4075; FAX: (215) 898-0657

www: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~nmiller0/