Early Crops in Southern England

Abstract

In 1939 a comprehensive survey was undertaken of the prehistoric plant husbandry in Great Britain and Ireland. The result of this work was published in 1944 by Knud Jessen and the present writer. One obvious and serious omission, due to circumstances connected with the impending war, was that a series of collections in the southern part of England was not examined. Since these included the Windmill Hill Collection in the Morven Institute Museum at Avebury opportunities for elucidating the initial plant breeding in the British Isles were evidently not exhausted.This deficiency in Cereals has been commented upon and has been felt severely by the authors and the readers alike, especially in Britain, and the idea of resuming the investigation was repeatedly discussed. In 1951 the writer was offered the opportunity of taking up the thread once more, and the examination of the pottery and grain deposits of southern England was carried out in the spring of 1952.