Introduction to plants

Digging at Star Carr has been an amazing experience. When you dig into peat, the preservation is so incredible that small twigs, leaves and moss survive. The wood still has its bark intact, and it looks like it has just fallen off a tree…it is hard to believe that it is actually 11,000 years old. So this week is all about plants because having this extraordinary survival of plant material in the ground gives us a very rare and important glimpse into this past world. Most of our evidence comes from wood - for instance, we have uncovered the earliest evidence of carpentry in Europe, and the remains of the oldest known house in Britain.

In addition we have unearthed tools which are incredibly rare such as a bow and digging sticks. But before we look at some of these amazing finds we are going to examine fungus - technically not a plant, but they grow on trees and helped to generate one of the most important technologies known to humankind - fire!