trough mashing, tridents, fire cracked stones and ale

introduction and update
This blog discusses some of the practical and technical details of mashing in, Neolithic and Bronze Age style. It's about troughs and tridents, hot rocks and prehistoric burnt mounds. It was first published in the summer of 2014. I've edited it, added a few more details and brought it a bit more up to date. Why did I do this? Because it's now 17th February 2022 and the World of Stonehenge Exhibition has just opened at the British Museum in London. Among the 400 wonderful exhibits are two large wooden tridents, carved from solid oak and each measuring over two metres long. They were discovered near Stainton, Carslisle, in 2013. What were these mysterious objects used for? Archaeologists were puzzled. Suggestions at the time included eel spears or hay forks, neither being particularly convincing.

There was quite a lot of discussion on social media about the various possible and probable uses for these enigmatic objects made from solid oak. I'll try and find a link to it. It was a lively and, at times, argumentative discussion.

One suggestion that Graham and I made at the time was that these wooden tridents were ideal as mash forks, a traditional tool used for stirring the crushed malt into hot water in the 'mashing in' part of the ale and beer brewing process. Initially the idea was met with some negativity and suspicion. However, it now seems to be one of the accepted interpretations and, I am pleased to report, is included in the newly published book of the 'The World of Stonehenge' Exhibition:

"The tridents may have been used for fishing or eel trapping, or in agricultural activities as hay forks, and even as mashing forks in the process of beer brewing. It is likely that farmers were using some of their cereal harvests to make alcohol for social and religious gatherings rather than consuming only sober porridge and savoury foods." 

(Garrow, D. & Wilkin, N. The World of Stonehenge, published by The British Museum, 2022 page 50)

(© Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery Trust)
This image is from a news item in Archaeology, Friday December 6th 2013. see:https://www.archaeology.org/news/1610-england-neolithic-wooden-tridents

At the World Archaeology Conference (WAC 6) in Dublin, 2008, archaeologists from the Moore Group demonstrated how to mash in a wooden trough using fire heated stones. They used a garden fork to transfer the stones into the trough.  Inspired by their brewing experiments Graham and I mashed in a replica stone trough at Bressay, Shetland, the site of a Bronze Age burnt mound, in the summer of 2011. We used a garden fork to stir the mash and, at the time, we wished that the handle of the fork could have been longer. Something like these tridents would have been perfect for the job. See our blog trough, mash and wort for more details of these experiments and demonstrations.

These two wooden tridents were carved from single pieces of oak and would certainly have been sturdy enough for the task of stirring the mash in a trough in the ground. They would also have been suitable to remove hot stones from a fire, transferring them into the trough of water in order to heat it and maintain a good mash temperature. The tridents have been dated to c3650 BC and were found in a palaeochannel at Stainton, a site associated with burnt mounds and much more. See here for more details of the excavations. 

And now, after this updated introduction, let's go back to the blog that we wrote in the summer of 2014:

what is a burnt mound?  

In Ireland, over 5000 burnt mound sites are known. In Scotland, about 1900 have been excavated so far. They also found in England and Wales. The burnt mound itself is a pile of fire reddened and cracked stones, often in a semi-circular shape as they have been thrown onto the heap. The stones were put into a fire to be heated up, then dropped into a trough of water in order to heat it. There are many things that hot water can be used for.

Archaeologists agree that burnt mound sites are something to do with hot rock technology - using hot stones to heat lots of water - but to what purpose? That's what archaeologists can't agree on. There have been several suggestions:

- they were used to cook meat. The idea is that you wrap a big piece of meat in straw and leave it in the heated water trough for several hours. You probably have to keep putting more hot stones in, as the water cools. There are easier and more efficient ways of cooking meat.

- they were a sauna or sweat lodge. I don't understand this. In my experience, a sauna has a few hot stones upon which water is splashed to make steam. You don't need a large trough of water and lots of hot stones.

- you can wash sheep fleece or wool in them. This seems to be a practical idea. Fleece must be washed before it is spun into wool for clothing.

None of these suggestions are controversial. Most people reckon that the troughs would have been multi functional - a bit like the kitchen sink only much bigger. When it was suggested that these sites could have been used for making beer, some archaeologists became ever so slightly annoyed. Although the idea was first put forward in 2007, backed by successful experimental work and sound brewing theory, it is still considered by some to be controversial. I don't know why. 

Hot rocks are ideal for heating large amounts of water to the perfect temperature for mashing, which is between 65 and 67 degrees Centigrade. Getting the water much hotter than this is very difficult. We found it impossible to get the water to boil. 

troughs as mash tuns
The possibility that they were used in the making of ale or beer was first suggested by Declan Moore and Billy Quinn of Moore Archaeological and Environmental Services Ltd. I first met them at a Conference about beer and brewing in prehistory and antiquity, held in Barcelona, October 2004. I gave a paper about the importance of malt in the brewing process. Billy and Declan asked me whether it was possible to make beer in a hole in the ground. We agreed they should have a go.

The following year, they came to Orkney to meet Graham and to learn a bit more about how to make ale and beer from the grain. They tasted the wort and were surprised how sweet it is. They tried Graham's beer and liked it. Then they went back to Ireland to do their own research into hot rock mashing in a trough. It went extremely well, and led to their now famous video on You Tube. They wrote an article for Archaeology Ireland and there have been several more articles online since then. The details of their subsequent work are on their web page.

They gave a demonstration of the technique at the Sixth World Archaeology Conference in Dublin, 2008. I was lucky enough to be there and it was spectacular. The smoke, the steam, the hot stones and the aroma of the mash! All of these things added to the magic and drama of the demonstration. If an archaeologist is looking for an impressive show of ritual, power and transformation in prehistory, then a hot rock mash ticks all the boxes. 

One day in the summer of 2009, I got a phone call from Billy. He told me that a trough with grain in it had just been found in Wales. The well preserved trough, with wood lined water channels, was excavated by Dave Chapman of Ancient Arts who went on to do some mashing and brewing experiments of his own. He was successful, as reported in British Archaeology news.

We had to try this for ourselves. So far, we had been mashing small amounts of crushed malt in earthenware bowls. It was clear that the 'hot rocks in a trough' technique worked much better. Graham made a small wooden trough, about one third the size of the real ones, and we had some fun mashing with hot stones. It is best to use stones from the land. Rocks collected from the beach explode when being heated in the fire. This is very dangerous.

We had an opportunity to mash in the replica trough at Bressay, Shetland in the summer of 2011. The same trough that was used to experimentally wash fleeces. We cleaned it well and luted the corners with local clay, to prevent water leakage. This explains the grey colour of the water in the photo below. There was initially some concern that there might be a problem. It turned out to be the clearest, sparkliest ale we have ever made. Bentonite powder, a derivative of clay, is used today to clear wine and beer.

the strike: 50 kg of crushed malt is added to about 250 litres of hot water in the replica Cruester trough, Bressay, Shetland.
We used a garden fork to stir it about.

 

A successful mash. Adding a few hot stones kept the mash at an ideal temperature for the conversion of starch into sugar, which took about an hour. We put a piece of wood over the trough for heat retention. 

crushed malt & water transformed into 250 litres of wort in the trough, enough to make plenty of ale for a feast.

cheers! our clear and bright Bressay Ale.

After taking some of the wort from the trough using jugs, we added brewer's yeast and fermented it for several days. We only had one fermentation vessel, so we could not make use of more than 6 gallons of wort.

Next morning, when we went to empty and clean the trough, all the wort had drained away. Only the spent grain was left. Although we had clay luted it, the reconstructed trough is above the local water table. Meadowsweet flowers, about an ounce and a half, were added to the 6 gallons of wort when it had finished fermenting. Also, we had a ferry to catch and so our time was limited.

The result was a strong, clear ale. You can see all the pictures of our Bressay mashing and brewing adventure on my Facebook page. The ale kept really well.

We bottled it and sent some to the Past Horizons people to taste. It did take a while to open the parcel, but I think it was probably worth it.


neolithic burnt mounds, wooden tridents and fire cracked stones
There are excavations taking place in Northumberland, not far from Bamburgh Castle, organised by the Bamburgh Research Project. Several burnt mounds have been excavated and archaeomagnetromic dates that have so far been obtained indicate that these burnt mounds were in use during the Neolithic. Pottery finds support this interpretation. The dates obtained so far are 6,230 +/- 50 years BP at 95% confidence. There is a good summary of the excavations here.

Bishop Arnold of Soissons

In December last year, there was much discussion and argument on social media about some neolithic wooden tridents that had been found at a multi period site in Cumbria, which included several burnt mounds. What were these long handled wooden 'forks' used for? Fish prongs? Or maybe they were used for catching eels? Interpretations varied amongst archaeologists.

We think they would be a useful implement for stirring the crushed malt into the hot water - the strike. The crushed malt, also known as grist, clumps together when it is being added to the hot water. It is important to stir it about. It is also necessary to stir the mash when you add more heated stones. You don't want to have hot spots, you want to maintain an even temperature throughout the mash. The fork can also be used to move the hot stones about in the trough, if necessary.

In the Bressay trough, we used a garden fork. The handle was far too short and a long handled wooden trident would have been ideal.

Bishop Arnold of Soissons (who lived from 1040 to 1087) was the patron saint of brewers in Belgium. He is depicted with Bishop's mitre and a mash rake, which looks very much like those neolithic wooden rakes excavated in Cumbria.

Several neolithic buildings have been excavated at Kingsmead Quarry, Berkshire, England, by Wessex Archaeology. They have been interpreted as houses. This site is another very complex, multi period discovery, with finds ranging from the mesolithic, neolithic and Bronze Age through to post medieval structures.

One of the four neolithic rectangular timber buildings, or 'houses' at Horton caught our attention when we were looking at the images online. There seem to be some fire reddened rocks close by the trenches that reveal the outline of the building in the photo below. What are they? They look rather like modern bricks, but the stratigraphy indicates that they are contemporary with the building. Are these stones an indication of hot rock technology at neolithic Horton? If so, exactly what were they doing in and around this wooden building, over 5000 years ago?

the footprint of a neolithic rectangular timber building at Horton, Kingsmead Quarry, with a big pile of fire cracked stones.
Details of the excavation here.

 

We looked through the reports online but could not find a reference to them. Quite a mystery! Graham managed to enlarge the section of the image with the rocks in and here it is. In close up they look even more mysterious. We look forward to reading the full excavation report to see what the interpretation of these rocks might be.

a close up of those mysterious fire reddened stones.

We would love to hear your ideas about burnt mounds, troughs, mash tuns and the possibilities of hot stone technology. This technique, of heating water and the mash with hot stones, is so successful that it has been done from the Neolithic to Viking times. Some burnt mounds provide dates that indicate this.

Beakers were for Beer! part three: alewives and barmaids

In the early years of my research, I visited a few microbreweries. I wanted to talk to professional brewers who made ale in the traditional way using crushed malt, not malt extract, and who worked on a small scale. This approach to brewing beer in small batches, supplying local pubs, hotels and restaurants, began to take off in the 1980s and 1990s. The interest in real ale in Britain began with CAMRA in 1971. Peter Brown does a good job in telling the story of the rise of craft beer UK style. Worth reading. Anyway, to get back to my story, one of the microbreweries I visited was a tiny establishment, equipped with one mash tun, one boiler and two fermenters. He used crushed malted barley, hops, water and yeast and made a wide variety of beers from these basic ingredients. As any good brewer does.

He was interested in the story of the Bronze Age woman buried in a stone cist at North Mains, Strathallan. She had been buried with a Food Vessel. The residue from a cereal based alcoholic brew, flavoured with meadowsweet, was discovered within it (see part one). We chatted about it in detail, and with some excitement, because I had only just found out about the residue analysis in the Strathallan pot myself. That evening, he went down to the pub and related the story to his mates. And why not? It's a good story. One of his mates was a journalist for the local paper. A couple of days later there was a headline "Bronze Age Barmaid" or "Prehistoric Barmaid discovered" or something along those lines. And my name was attached to it, almost as if I had discovered it. Many of the details were wrong. It was only a small piece in a local newspaper, but it seemed like sensational stuff at the time. Some folk at the University were not very pleased about it.

I had just had my first encounter with The Press, and with some of the silliness that seems to surround any news story about ancient alcoholic brews - beer, wine or mead. 

alewives and cup bearers 
Maybe that journalist was thinking along the right lines, although 'barmaid' is not quite the right word to use in a prehistoric context. There is a well established tradition of women as cup bearers, providing the drink at feasts.

Eva Koch, writing in 1986, gives several archaeological and historical examples of the woman as hostess, who would have held a high status position within society. In her article the woman with the drink she describes the grave at Juellinge of a woman, in her 30s, who was buried wearing her silver jewellery and hair ornaments. In the grave with her was some meat, either a whole sheep or pieces of pork and beef - archaeological sources vary. The bronze bucket had contained a drink brewed with barley and cranberries or crowberries and bog myrtle. There were drinking horns and glasses for her guests. The grave was excavated in 1909. 

A recent detailed analysis of these residues has led to the novel idea that the Juellinge vessel had contained 'nordic grog'. The media loved this story. There are variations of it all over the internet, but journalists don't always get all the details right. I don't agree with the concept of a 'nordic grog'. I think it is far more likely that the bucket contained an ale, or perhaps you could call it a barley wine, made from wort and flavoured with a few berries, flowers, herbs and maybe some honey. All the sugars that you need for fermentation can be obtained from the mash tun, as I explained in earlier posts.

There are many similarities between the Juellinge grave and the burial of the young woman, described by some as a dancing woman or priestess, at Egtved.

reconstruction of the oak log coffin of the Egtved Girl. Bronze Age. 1370BC

She was buried wearing bronze jewellery and the bucket at her feet contained the remains of an ale or beer, flavoured with berries and perhaps honey. The bucket was made of birch bark and is too big for a drinking vessel. It is more suitable for serving or perhaps it was one of the vessels used in making the ale. One interpretation is that she was buried with ale for the journey into the afterlife, which is certainly possible. I can't help wondering whether she was buried with the tools of her trade - her brewing bucket.

And so we move on to Bronze Age Scotland and the cist grave excavated in 1979 - the one that the brewer was so interested in. The Bronze Age barmaid herself, buried with her Food Vessel. Could she have been a cup bearer, at feasts and ceremonies, perhaps? Maybe she was an alewife. Some might see her as a priestess or as one of the elite, a high status and important member of society. There are several possible interpretations of who this Bronze Age woman was and what her role in society could have been.

female cist burial excavated in 1979 at Strathallan, North Mains, SC845100. (copyright Historic Scotland)

The specialist secrets, skills and knowledge of how to transform harvested grain into ale by malting, mashing, lautering, sparging and fermentation were as important then as they are now. Without them, there would be no ale or beer for the feast.

I'm sure that the tradition of the alewife, or brewster, goes right back to prehistoric times, to the earliest grain cultivators and processors, the neolithic folk. There are many different herbs and plants that have been used to flavour, preserve or enhance ale. Known today as gruit, some herbs have medicinal or hallucinogenic properties. Henbane pollen was identified in cereal based residues on sherds from large bucket shaped neolithic pottery known as Grooved Ware at a site called Balfarg in Scotland. More on this in the next post. This discovery extends the potential role of the alewife to that of a healer, maybe even more than that. Here's a link to a blog about the 'brewster as witch' by Jane Peyton, a sommelier and beer expert. Her article is a bit of an advert for a Ninkasi style women's brewing competition that took place in 2011. So, sadly, too late for me to make a brew for that. But she makes some interesting points.

I shall return to the 'magic of brewing' in a later post. It's a huge topic.

beakers, food vessels and tripartite urns - some brief notes
Welcome to the wonderful world of prehistoric pottery! It can be quite bewildering. Confusing to non archaeologists, at the very least. I have discovered this after many years of explaining (or trying to explain) prehistoric pottery classifications to tourists.

In a British Bronze Age context, there are beakers, collared urns, tripartite food vessels and funerary urns. Simply explained - beakers were drinking vessels. Food Vessels, otherwise known as tripartite food vessels, appear to have had no specific function, other than for 'food preparation'. This is how they are described in the archaeological literature.

Sometimes they are found in stone cists and they contained the cremated bone. Collared urns are larger vessels, also often found with cremated bone in burials. This is a blog. It is not an academic thesis. So I must apologise to all archaeological pottery specialists for the simplicity of these descriptions.

a few recent rather exciting discoveries of tripartite food vessels
In March 2012, the land owner of a disused quarry on the island of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland, noticed something interesting in the cliff face. It turned out to be not one, but two Bronze Age stone burial cists. One cist was empty and the other contained the remains of an adult human cremation in a tripartite food vessel and a flint knife.

the food vessel

an unusual excavation technique at Sannox Cliff, Arran

A radiocarbon date of 2154 - 2026 BC was obtained. The flint knife, when analysed, had traces of silica, indicating that it had been used to cut grasses or cereals. This is intriguing. Was this the cist grave of someone, probably a woman, whose work involved the gathering and the processing of wheat or barley? I think so. It's not the sort of thing that is found every day. Excavation techniques involved the use of a cherry picker. A news report with some great photos, is here. The excavation was undertaken by GUARD Archaeology, Glasgow and is available here.

In September 2011, in Spinningdale, by the Dornoch Firth in Sutherland, northern Scotland, the accidental discovery of a very well preserved Bronze Age female cist burial, with food vessel, occurred when someone was digging the hole for their new septic tank. Once again, it was excavated by the team at GUARD. Radiocarbon dates from the bone were 2051 -1911 BC and from the charcoal within the grave, dates of 2151-2018 BC were obtained. Inside the cist was female skeleton with a tripartite food vessel at her head.

She was between 35 and 50 years old and had been laid upon a sheepskin, or maybe she wore woollen clothing. It is not quite clear, but unusually, fragments of the wool had survived in the well sealed cist. The excavators thought she may have been an important woman, having been buried with such great care and attention. More details here.

The cist grave of another high status, important and wealthy Bronze Age woman was recently excavated near Windsor, England. Excavations at the Kingsmead Quarry, undertaken by Wessex Archaeology, were presented to the public in 2013. They have put a lot of their information online. It is a large, complex site that includes mesolithic, neolithic, bronze age, iron age, Romano British and medieval elements. The excavations were generously funded by CEMEX. The archaeologists have been digging up lots of really exciting stuff at Horton and you can read all about it on their web site.

Of particular interest is the female burial, dated to between 2500 and 2200 BC. She was at least 35 years old, according to bone evidence. She was buried wearing her necklace of gold, amber and black lignite beads. She may also have had a bracelet, since there were black lignite beads near her wrist. Some perforated amber beads or buttons indicate that she may have worn woolen clothing, with these valuable fasteners. By her side was a large drinking vessel, beaker style. Was this a serving vessel, rather than her personal beaker? It must be considered a possibility. It would be fantastic if a residue analysis could be done of the vessel fabric. I'm not sure, but I don't think this has yet been done.

We cannot be completely sure of her full role within society, whether she was a princess, queen, alewife or cup bearer. It is clear that she was a woman of some importance. More details about her here.

In the words of the site director, Gareth Chaffey, who has been excavating the site for seven years, " It is interesting to think who this woman was within her community. She was probably an important person in her society, perhaps holding some standing which gave her access to prestigious, rare and exotic items. She could have been a leader, a person with power and authority or possibly part of an elite family - perhaps a princess or a queen."

I shall leave the mysterious high status women of the Bronze Age, for now. I'm sure you will come to your own conclusions about them.

Site Director Gareth Chaffey, of Wessex Archaeology, who has been excavating the site for the last seven years, said: “It is interesting to think who this woman was within her community. She was probably an important person in her society, perhaps holding some standing which gave her access to prestigious, rare and exotic items. She could have been a leader, a person with power and authority, or possibly part of an elite family - perhaps a princess or queen.” - See more at: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/news/2013/04/19/beaker-burial#sthash.uX7GzXBU.dpuf

Site Director Gareth Chaffey, of Wessex Archaeology, who has been excavating the site for the last seven years, said: “It is interesting to think who this woman was within her community. She was probably an important person in her society, perhaps holding some standing which gave her access to prestigious, rare and exotic items. She could have been a leader, a person with power and authority, or possibly part of an elite family - perhaps a princess or queen.” - See more at: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/news/2013/04/19/beaker-burial#sthash.uX7GzXBU.dpuf

Beakers were for Beer! part one: ale, mead & residues

Beakers were for beer. I was told this back in 1995, in my final year as an archaeology undergraduate. There was absolutely no doubt about this, or so it seemed at the time. I made a note to look further into the idea. This was when my interest in ancient brewing techniques began. I had never thought about it before, but, being married to a home brewer of fine ales, made from all grain, I was intrigued. He would carry a 25 kilogram sack of crushed malt from the Brewing Supplies shop into the house, and then after about a week, he would have made us some excellent beer. A 25 kilo sack of malt would make 4 brews of 8 or 9 gallons each. Yes, I'm mixing Imperial and Metric but I am not bothered about that. The point is that you can make plenty of beer from 25 kilos of malt.

How did those Bronze Age folk, living in Britain around 4000 years ago, make their beer? I asked several people in the Archaeology Department but nobody seemed to know. They all thought I was crazy, looking for the archaeological evidence of beer brewing. You won't find anything, they said.

A paper was cited by the lecturer: Burgess and Shennan: The Beaker Phenomenon: some suggestions. It had been presented at a conference "Settlement and economy in the third and second millennia BC" and the proceedings were published in 1976 as a British Archaeological Report (BAR 33). It is cited in dozens, if not hundreds of academic bibliographies about the Bronze Age of the British Isles. It has become a classic paper, but it is not easy to find unless you have access to a University Library. That is to say that I have not managed to find access to a copy online.

One of the arguments of the paper was that Beakers were made specially for the drinking of beer. They proposed that a warrior cult existed in Bronze Age Britain, with some people buried with grave goods that reflected their prestige, high status and lifestyle. Grave goods often included a drinking vessel - a finely made and decorated pottery 'beaker' from which they drank their beer. No archaeological evidence, such as residue analysis, was presented in the paper.

The Amesbury Archer, referred to by the media as the 'King' of Stonehenge was considered to have been an important person and someone of high status, since he was buried with lots of grave goods, including five fine beakers, gold jewellery, the equipment for making metal and a slate wrist guard that hints at his prowess with a bow and arrows.

beaker from Hemp Knoll, Avebury

If beakers were for beer, then what is the archaeological evidence? Did it taste like the beer that we drink today? Who made it? Were the brewers men or women? What's the story?

Strictly speaking, when referring to prehistoric brewing from cereals, it should be called ale, not beer. What's the difference? Ale and beer are both made from malted grain - barley, wheat, oats or rye. Ale is preserved and flavoured with a variety of herbs, such as bog myrtle, heather, yarrow, juniper or meadowsweet. Beer is flavoured with hops which were introduced to the brewing process only recently, in medieval times. Spices can also be used. Today, we tend to use the terms 'ale' and 'beer' fairly indiscriminately.

For anyone interested in ancient ale, the discovery of cereal based residues on old pots has to be one of the most exciting things. Research was very different in those days. In the late 1990s the internet was in its' infancy. Internet search engines were a rare and wonderful thing, to be accessed by a few lucky academics. Charles Mount has written about how University research has changed over the last 20 years here. He is writing about University College Dublin, but the story is the same throughout UK Universities.

So, for me, my first research involved going to the John Rylands Library, looking through the card index systems, finding archaeology journals and reading lots of excavation reports. I spent many hours doing this. I started with the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, fondly known as the PSAS (now available online). It is an excellent resource. I soon stumbled on excavation reports that had some intriguing descriptions of cereal based residues on pottery, together with a detailed pollen analysis. Just what I was looking for.

cereal based residues on pottery
A couple of years after the Burgess and Shennan paper was published, a discovery was made in Fife, Scotland, that supported their thesis that beakers were for beer drinking in the Bronze Age. 

In 1978, excavations by a team led by Gordon Barclay at the site of a timber circle, bank and ditch (c2330 ± 60BC) at North Mains, Strathallan, Scotland, revealed several cist burials  In one of these, a female cist burial, there was a fine, complete Food Vessel with a deposit of organic material still adhering to the inner surface of the pot, after thousands of years. It was described as a 'black greasy material on the internal surfaces'. Such discoveries are extremely  rare.

The cist was situated in the centre of the timber circle. Fortunately, it had remained partially sealed, hence the unusual survival of the organic material. Analysis of the residues revealed high percentages of cereal pollen and meadowsweet pollen. It was interpreted as being the probable remains of a cereal based fermented drink. The radiocarbon date was 1540 ± 65BC. The analysis (below) is on pages 178 to 180 of the excavation report in PSAS Volume 113. The details are important and of interest to any all grain brewer. The 'human interference' that has introduced charcoal to and that is referred to might be the drying of malted grain, rather than parching harvested grain.

There is a Table on page 179 which gives the details and percentages of the pollen finds. Of course, I recommend reading the whole report, which can be downloaded from the PSAS website. That is because I really like to read the original excavation reports rather than secondhand interpretations. It is almost like being there! The descriptions of the pottery finds (between pages 155 and 163) are also informative.

When I showed this pollen analysis to my husband he said 'I can make that. I just need to replace the hops with some meadowsweet flowers.' And so our research into recreating ancient ales began.

POLLEN ANALYSIS OF DEPOSITS IN A FOOD VESSEL FROM THE HENGE MONUMENT, NORTH MAINS                         S Bohncke
INTRODUCTION
Burial B was accompanied by a food vessel (SF17), discovered lying on its side by the skull. Within the pot a small deposit of black greasy material was found. As the analysis of material within vessels has proved valuable (Dickson 1978) samples of this deposit and scrapings from the pot wall were subjected to pollen analysis. 

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Part of the black greasy material was used for the preparation of two pollen samples and another sample was scraped from the inner fabric of the pot. All samples were treated with hydrogen fluoride to remove the silaceous component and were subsequently subjected to Erdtman's acetolysis. Microscope slides were then prepared using glycerol jel as an embedding medium.
 
RESULT AND DISCUSSION 
High percentages of Filipendula (meadowsweet) pollen (74-1 %, 77-8%, 84% (scraping)) and relatively high percentages of cerealia pollen were noted. There was also a large proportion of charcoal fragments. Within the Filipendula grains there was a wide range of variation in the states of preservation. The well preserved type is the tricolpate micro echinate pollen in which the pores are clearly pouting. The very corroded type lacks the characteristic pores but the wall structure is not affected. Immature pollen was also present. Relatively high proportions of Filipendula can be attributed in part to selective corrosion as Filipendula has a relatively thick wall but this could not explain the 74-1-84% found in these samples.

Cereals are self pollinating, the result being that little pollen is dispersed into the air. The anthers remain within the spikelets so that on the fully grown cereal pollen grains could still be present, though most would be lost during the winnowing process. Compared with the other species the cereals are over represented in both samples. This is probably the result of human interference. The charcoal in the samples might have originated in the processing of the grain (eg roasting to remove chaff), however the cereal pollen were not burnt and this therefore seems unlikely. The charcoal may also have found its way into the pot during the burial ritual or have been in the pot already, perhaps as the result of firing a new vessel for the burial. The remaining pollen almost certainly came accidentally into the food vessel and represented a part of the contemporary pollen rain. The presence of pollen of plants flowering at different times of the year (eg Corylus March-April, Polypodium August-September) might be explained by the addition of pollen-bearing water to whatever was contained in the vessel or its incorporation in the manufacture of the contents.

Dickson (1978) in his analysis of the Ashgrove beaker scrapings discovered very high proportions of Tilia and Filipendula and concluded that the vessel had contained lime honey or mead flavoured with meadowsweet. The North Mains food vessel contained neither lime pollen nor sufficient pollen from other honey-producing plants. The 2-4-3-7% of Compositae pollen were not sufficient for a honey based on Compositae alone. The high proportion of cereal pollen grains might suggest either a porridge of cereals (eg frumenty) or a fermented ale, flavoured with meadowsweet flowers or extract. The name 'meadow-sweet' originates from mead-sweet as it was used to flavour mead and other drinks. It is distinctly possible therefore that the North Mains food vessel contained a fermented drink.

the Ashgrove beaker
Mention is made of the Ashgrove Beaker. This was found in an excavation of a Bronze Age cist burial by Audrey Henshall and was published in Antiquity in 1963. As well as the skeleton and a beaker, there was also a fine dagger. It seemed that the pot had fallen over, spilling its' contents on the floor of the cist. James Dickson analysed the residues in the 1970s and he also published his results in Antiquity.

Pollen analysis revealed large amounts of immature lime pollen and meadowsweet pollen, which was interpreted as the remains of mead but sadly, it was not radiocarbon-dated. Nor did they look for cereal residues. Ian Hornsey discusses the implications of this discovery in his book, The History of Beer.

my first article

These discoveries, and others, led me to write my first article about the archaeology of ancient ale, towards the end of 1996. Descriptions of residues on Grooved Ware pottery from the neolithic site of Balfarg are very similar to those found on Beaker pottery. It was beginning to look as if making ale from the grain was a Neolithic, not a Bronze Age phenomenon.

I was very pleased and proud to be the cover girl for BA19 and I have Simon Denison, the then editor of British Archaeology, to thank for that. He was interested in my work and very supportive.

The picture shows the Strathallan or North Mains food vessel, with meadowsweet flowers surrounding it. These flowers would have been the flavouring and preservative for the ale, the base of which would have been a wort made from crushed malted cereal - barley and/or wheat.

Finding Magic in Stone Age Ale - my first article - you can read it here.

That's all for this blog - more than enough for you to be getting on with. I find it odd that in 2014, particularly in the UK, there seems to be a taboo surrounding any discussion by archaeologists of malt and ale in prehistory.

The evidence is there, if you know and understand what the brewing process is and what you have to look for in the archaeological record.

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... my next blog will be about the Egtved Girl's Brew, the residues of which were found in a birch bark bucket in her oak log coffin in Denmark ... there are some details here.

Please get in touch with me if you have made a beer based upon these residues, if you know of someone who has or if you have been lucky enough to taste one of these brews.

I know about the 'Nordic Grog' made by Dogfish Head Brewery, under the guidance of Professor Pat McGovern. It was recently marketed as Kvasir, named after a Nordic Princess. 

I want to hear about any real home brewers who have had a go at recreating it.

Thankyou! 

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further reading
Burgess, C. & Shennan, S. 1976. The Beaker Phenomenon: some suggestions. In Burgess, C Miket, R. (eds.)  Settlement and economy in the third and second millennia BC : papers delivered at a conference organised by the Department of Adult Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, B.A.R 33, Oxford, 309-331.

Barclay, G. (1984a) 'Sites of the third millenium BC to the first millenium AD at North Mains, Strathallan, Perthshire', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol.113


Dickson, J. 1978 'Bronze age mead', Antiquity, 52 (1978), 108-13.