Does a single olive stone prove pre-Roman trade with Britain?

[Melvadius]

The Guardian is carying an intriging article under the heading

An olive stone from 150BC links pre-Roman Britain to today's pizzeria

 

Personally I am not totally convinced that just because a single charred olive stone was found in a secure context it necessarily dates to that context. There have been several examples found of coins and other small items dropping down to lower levels either through worm action or during dry spells when the ground may open up. A secure layer of olive stones would be another matter so I wait to see if more information/ examples are forthcoming.

 

Iron Age Britons were importing olives from the Mediterranean a century before the Romans arrived with their exotic tastes in food, say archaeologists who have discovered a single olive stone from an excavation of an Iron Age well at at Silchester in Hampshire.

 

The stone came from a layer securely dated to the first century BC, making it the earliest ever found in Britain

[Kosmo]

An olive stone from 150BC

 

The stone came from a layer securely dated to the first century BC,

 

The dates don't add up.

[Melvadius]

I suppose it only goes to show that the 'Grauniad' despite the advent of spell checking, since years ago a disgrunteled about to be ex-employee in the days of hot-type managed to change their banner without anyone noticing, still has problems with proof reading

[Klingan]

Well, I'm not 100% sure (since the article doesn't really tell) but it seems to me that the pit was found in well. Now, I'm doing my phd on cisterns in Greece and trust me when i tell you, there is just about no such thing as a safe context from a well or cistern. Sometimes they are filled by material from old dumps, sometimes they stay empty for centuries when not in use. Sometimes they are left half filled for a few hundred years and then another fill is added on top. It's, from out perspective, completely random. Not to mention the degree to which materials tend to wander in these contexts... A single pit hardly tells us anything here. Unfortunately.

[GhostOfClayton]

Can I just check my facts here? Do you guys doubt the existence of trade between Britannia and areas under Roman control in 150AD?

 

I'm not going to go out and trawl the internet for evidence, but surely the distances and obstacles were not great enough to impede trade as late as 150BC.

[Melvadius]

No the 'Gruniad' stated the olive stone was found in what was 'claimed' to be a securely dated 150BC layer within a well. That is what Klingan and I find astonishing given how material can travel up and down in the semi-liquid gloop that tends to be at the bottom of a well. Even if the well had been dug in 150BC a single olive stone could easily have drifted down to the bottom due to natural movement of worms or with the mud drying out and cracking when the well was no longer in use.

[GhostOfClayton]

That's OK then. Carry on. As you were.

[Maty]

One olive pit does not make a trade route. Before the brand was available here, I recall an Australian friend who used to prevail on friends to bring cans of Fosters halfway around the world when they visited. The current story (it may have been updated) talks about 'first century BC' a time when individual Romans (and certainly one Caesar, Caius J.) visited the island.

 

I can well imagine a Roman diplomat or Greek trader taking an amphora containing a little taste of home with him while visiting Silchester. Especially if hostelries on the south coast had their modern levels of cuisine ...