Medieval manure, from Riga to Reading
Many boxes of medieval stratigraphy I was back at the University of Reading a few days ago to have a look through all the samples that have been collected for the Ecology of Crusading project. Four cardboard boxes and a tray of miscellaneous samples later, I finally got them all unpacked and ready for the drying oven. It appears at least half the samples have the note ‘manure layer’ attached, so nothing new there. In fact, that'll be the third time this year I've recieved parcels of such material. I should start telling people I am interested in highland single malt whisky as well as coprolite analysis, maybe I’d start getting that in the post regularly too. Anyway. Block of medieval manure The majority of these samples were collected from excavations of medieval deposits in the centre of Riga (Latvia). I am told that these are the first micromorphology samples ever collected from a commercial excavation in Latvia, by students who took part in the C ē s...