First Identification of Club Moss Use in Roman Britain

Authors

  • Margarita Gleba
  • Elizabeth M. Foulds
  • Al Teasdale
  • Hannah Russ

Abstract

Archaeological works undertaken as part of Highways England’s A1 road improvement scheme between Leeming Bar and Barton encountered a large rural Roman cemetery at Bainesse, near Catterick in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom. A copper-alloy bead was found to contain preserved string formed of two strands of an organic material twisted together in one of more than 200 burials. Scanning electron microscopy analysis suggests that the string was made of a club moss or a related species of fibre. This discovery further widens the repertoire of indigenous plant species used in Roman Britain for the production of textiles and emphasises the importance of fibre identification even of small organic remains. 

Downloads

Published

21-12-2017

How to Cite

Gleba, M. (2017) “First Identification of Club Moss Use in Roman Britain”, Archaeological Textiles Review, 59, pp. 17–23. Available at: https://tidsskrift.dk/atr/article/view/167006 (Accessed: 9 April 2026).

Issue

Vol. 59 (2017)

Section

ARTICLES (double blind peer reviewed)

License

Authors retain copyright to their articles.

From issue 68 and onwards, articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, which allows others to freely share the material in unadapted form and for noncommercial purposes, as long as proper attribution is given.

In issues 54-67, all rights are reserved to the authors.