ABSTRACT
Recent excavations at Wangels, on the border of the Oldenburg channel in Eastern Holsatia, unearthed rich archaeological deposits dating to the Mesolithic and early Neolithic and the middle Neolithic of the Funnel Beaker culture. This chapter presents the archaeobotanical material from the middle Neolithic layer, which had no cultivated plants. The finds from Wangels are perfectly preserved, not only the flint, and ceramics but also the bones and plant remains. The chapter provides the list of carbonized plant remains from a megalithic grave and house context. Opium poppy is the only cultivated plant in the Neolithic of western European origin and the earliest finds are from sites in the lower Rhine. The presence of poppy seeds at Wangels is an indication that their absence at other sites is due to poor preservation on most and methodological inadequacies on others. The numbers of seeds at, Wangels are equivalent, to the numbers found in most prehistoric contexts.
