Decayed wood occurs relatively frequently in charcoal assemblages from Iron Age sites in northwest Iberia, and the presence of fungal hyphae and wood-borer galleries has been identified in charred wood remains from different kinds of archaeological contexts. This study analysed the evidence of decayed wood, as a result of fungal and insect attack, including the affected taxa and other dendrological attributes, their association with firewood remains or evidence of wooden crafts and other contextual evidence, from nine Iron Age sites. The data available to date indicate that Corylus avellana, Quercus sp. deciduous, Alnus sp. and Fabaceae have been affected the most by the action of fungus and wood-borers, and evidence of xylophagous activity is correlated with the occurrence of fire events and/or the presence of worked wood. This paper highlights the potential of combining taxonomical identification with taphonomical and dendrological attributes to understand the processes of wood degradation in archaeological contexts.

The author was funded by a Xunta de Galicia Post-Doc Grant Plan I2C mod. B with the project ‘MATERIAL-Materiality and Material Culture: Wood and Other Plant-based Materials in Archaeological Contexts’ (ED481D 2017/16).

Peer reviewed