ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the activities responsible for the creation of charred assemblages can be used to explain variation within them, and then proceeds to examine how the nature of these activities may reveal something about the social context in which they took place. It explains the Neolithic assemblages; they are distinguished both by the taxa that are present and also by those that are absent. For example, chaff and weed seeds have been recovered from later British and European Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK) sites but are conspicuous by their near absence in the British Neolithic. The contexts in which British Neolithic plant remains occur are varied. Cereals are frequently stored in houses on settlement sites where there are excellent opportunities for the charring of grain. The chapter examines the implications that the ideas associated with the use of cereals and wild plants have for our understanding of Neolithic subsistence within a social context.
