Storing charred seeds

Unsorted flots and heavy residues from wet sieving or ‘water-separation’ can be conveniently stored in, respectively, seal-easy and heavy duty plastic bags, prior to sorting for identifiable archaeobotanical remains.

Once identifiable charred archaeobotanical remains (wood charcoals, seeds and fruits, roots and tubers) have been extracted from the flots and heavy residues, these are best stored in glass vials (of varying sizes) with plastic caps. Gelatine capsules are a useful way of storing very small (often fragile) items, such as weed seeds and chaff fragments. These can be protected by placing the capsules into glass vials or bottles.

In all cases, the botanical material must be thoroughly dry before it is put into storage to prevent fungal growth etc, and clear durable labelling both inside and outside the storage containers is recommended.