The speaker for May’s UHI Archaeology Institute seminar was Nadine Nolde from the University of Cologne.
During excavations at the Carolingian Werden Abbey, near Essen, German, the associated pond was examined. It was built right after the founding of the abbey in AD799, but abandoned, after a few decades, in the first half of the ninth century.
Due to the excellent preservation conditions in the permanently waterlogged sediments of the pond, large numbers of organic remains were preserved, allowing extensive archaeobotanical and archaeozoological investigations.
The spectrum of livestock and their products provided an vivid picture of economic practices of the early medieval monastery.
A comparison with the contemporary text Capitulare de villis vel curtis de imperii – an edict listing rules and regulations for royal estates associated to Charlemange or Charles the Great, first emperor of Central Europe after the Roman Empire – showed that many of its guidelines were implemented in Werden.
