The analysis of plant remains from the fortress Ras - the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century

Abstract

This paper presents a study of macro plant remains from the medieval site of Ras that is situated in the southwest Serbia, 11 km southwest from the city of Novi Pazar. The site of Gradina at Ras occupies a plateau on the top of a hill delineated by the remains of the medieval ramparts. The settlement of Podgrađe is situated on the a flat surface along the slopes of Gradina and together form a part of the single settlement and fortification complex Ras characterized by several stages of occupation and development. During archaeological excavations of Ras, macro plant remains were gathered (1972–1984) where observed with a naked eye. Dr. Marko Popović (Archaeological Institute, Belgrade), the principal investigator of Ras and the author of the monograph The Fortress of Ras (1999) provided me with twelve plant samples from the medieval layers of the fortress Gradina, and one sample from the site Podgrađe below the fortress (Table 1). Three samples are from the third building horizon dated to the second half of the 12 century, and the remaining samples are from the fourth building horizon dated to the first decades of the 13 century. This is a period when the fortress was abandoned by the Byzantines and became a stronghold of the territory where the first Serbian state was formed. All plant samples were carbonized, except one that contained five uncarbonized hazelnut shells and a plum pit that were determined to be recent intrusions. Most samples represent material from cereal storages found at features (houses) 49, 50, and 52–situated along the west wall of the fortress (Figure 1). One sample is a piece of bread found at feature 36, and one sample represents the contents of a pot found in feature 51. Carbonized peach pits were recovered from cultural layers of the fourth horizon, one from a southeast quadrant of Gradina and the other from a cultural layer excavated in Podgrađe (Table 1).This analysis of plant remains from Ras (Table 2) is the first archaeobotanical investigation from a Medieval site in Serbia. The previous information that we have about the agriculture in medieval Serbia was based solely on the written sources including documents from monasteries and/or from archives Similarly, the Byzantine sources do not give any information about the agriculture of southeast Serbia in this period. The written documents are thus, either later than the existence of the fortress of Ras or are not concerning the region of Ras. Therefore, macro plant remains from Ras are the only direct evidence providing information about agricultural activities and plant food practices of the inhabitants of the territory that was to become the center of the newly formed Serbian state. The analysis of macro plant remains has shown that cereals were stored at the fortress. The most represented is bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). Besides wheat, rye (Secale cereale), barley (Hordeum vulgare), oats, (Avena sativa) and millet (Panicum miliaceum) were also found. The differences in quantity of various cereals present per sample indicates that some cereals were sown together, e.g wheat and rye from a sample in feature 50. Sowing two crops together, in a "maslin" fashion is traditionally explained as a risk-reducing strategy Although millet was not highly regarded as a human food source according to the Byzantine sources, millet has been identified at Ras and other contemporaneous sites in Bulgaria, Poland, and Russia, providing direct evidence that it was grown and eaten among the Slavs. Millet and oats are both spring sown crops and their presence indicates that probably crop ration was practiced with winter cereals like wheat, rye, or barley. The identified weed seeds from the cereal samples reveal that cereals were grown locally and that some were grown in the fields that were used for longer period of time while others might have been grown on newly cleared land. There are no internodes or cereal glumes present in the samples, indicating that the cereals must have been threshed outside the fortress before they were stored in pits and probably in bags in the features of the forth horizon. There were several hand rotary querns discovered at the fortress, demonstrating that the cereals were hand ground in the fortress, probably on a daily basis. An exceptional discovery was a preserved fragment of charred round bread that was ca. 30 cm large and 2–3 cm thick. On the broken edge of the bread it could be observed that the bread was made from coarsely ground cereals perhaps whole wheat flour. Besides bread, there is evidence that porridges were also consumed. A whole pot was recovered that contained remains of starchy material that included coarsely ground grain, probably barley. Millet also could have been consumed as porridge. Of special importance is the discovery of charred peach pits (Prunus perisca). Peach is not found wild in the natural vegetation of Europe, and the fruit tree must have been brought to Serbia. Because the fleshy fruits are very soft and cannot be dried, the peach trees were probably grown locally during the rule of Serbian monarchs who had marital ties with women from the Byzantine and Venetians courts. The find of a fruit that has been probably introduced from the south demonstrates that the food at Ras included not only readily available local sources but also shows that, together with pottery imports, some of the foreign culinary and gardening practices were already being introduced in the early medieval Serbia.