Charred plant remains from Brogård, South-Western Sweden. New information on Early Bronze Age farming

Abstract

The analysis of plant macrofossil remains from an Early Bronze Age site is pre-sented. Four hundred and fifty-nine cereal grains where identified, of which 188 were determined to species or variety level. When grains were impossible to iden-tify from morphological characteristics, but were not fragmented, they could be tentatively ascribed to a species or a group of species from size measurements and index calculations. The cereal record has similarities with Neolithic material, as wheat represents a !arge proportion, and with Late Bronze Age material, as millet, oat and spelt are present. The material from Brogård suggests that the re-organization of the farming community, which is characteristic of the Late Bronze Age, may have started on a smaller scale already during the Early Bronze Age.