Roman wells of north-eastern Iberian Peninsula: Landscape and use of wooden resources

Abstract

Preservation of wood and other archaeobotanical remains is quite common in Roman wells from urban contexts. Wood recovered inside these wells can offer extraordinary information about forest exploitation and management, woodworking and building technology. The aim of this paper is to discuss and present the results and methodological approach of the analysis of wood recovered from three Roman wells in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. Paleoecological information, different uses of raw material, and technological as well as dendrochronological data obtained are presented and contextualized in relation to the period and the region. The main taxa used for manufacturing the goods and the structural elements of the wells were obtained in a wide catchment area. Besides local wood, non-local wood such as fir, birch and scots-black pine was transported to the sites.

New frontiers in tree-ring research

“…In addition to the simple identification of species (Piqué et al, 2016) and investigation of new species for dendrochronological research (Remane and Therrell, 2015; Uetimane et al, 2018), wood anatomy can be used to trace and date unusual or extreme events. For example, the impact of volcanic eruptions on climate can be traced by structural damage to cells affected by frost (Duan et al, 2018; Helama et al, 2019; Salzer and Hughes, 2007) and the eruptions thereby dated by proxy connection.…”

Late Antique Environment and Economy in the North of the Iberian Peninsula: The Site of La Tabacalera (Asturias, Spain)

“…5 A total of 31 radiocarbon dates were obtained from wooden objects (13), plant remains (13), organic sediment (4) and bone (1). Full details can be found in Fernández Ochoa et al 2015b Greig 1982;Hellwig 1997;Wiethold et al 2016 10 Chabal andFeugère 2005;Wiethold et al 2016, Piqué and Buxó 2005, Piqué et al 2016 Waterlogging occurs either when an archaeological feature is below the ground water level or, in cases above the water table, when the feature is covered by anoxic and highly organic deposits 11 . This can occur in a variety of environments such as lakes, wetlands, coastal sites and on dry sites, in particular in sunken features such as wells, ditches, and pits 12 .…”