The British Isles and Europe 245 percentage of late Saxon sites at which bread wheat alone is found,

declines by one half, but there are no sites of either period on which barley is found alone. This suggests that barley and wheat had different uses, that wheat was perhaps the more important, but that both crops were wanted. Almost certainly the wheat was used for bread, the barley for brewing, perhaps also for soups and stews, as it still is, and possibly also for feeding stock. Ruminant animals can be fed barley during the winter. One conclusion is that archaeological evidence does not support the view that barley was the staple crop in Anglo-Saxon England, the balance suggesting larger quantities of wheat. However, Hagen (1995) records hulled, six-rowed barley in the highest percentages throughout the Saxon period, although it diminishes very markedly in the middle period, showing only a gradual recovery by the late Saxon period. Oats were quite widely grown in Anglo-Saxon England, being recorded from the late 8th century, and were almost certainly used for human consumption, especially in times of scarcity or failure of other crops. In areas with damp, acid soils they may have been staple. They do not appear to feature in dues and rents, and are only mentioned a few times in the leechdoms, mainly for poultices rather than for internal use. Oatmeal (a?tena mela) is recorded, thus implying that bread was made from the ground material; presumably the seeds would not have been pounded for animal feed. Oats may well have been used for brewing, and Renfrew (1985) reports that in the Orkneys oats were added on special occasions to make beer more intoxicating. The cultivated oat, Avena sativa, has been recorded from a number of sites, particularly from rural and semi-rural ones, rather than around urban centres of population. The commonest wild oat is A. fatua and is difficult to distinguish from A. sativa unless the basal florets are present. It is known that wild oats were a nuisance in cultivated fields in the Saxon era, and it is possible that many of the records of oats are, in fact, the wild variety. This was almost certainly not the case in Wales, for Clapham, Tutin and Warburg (1962) have A. fatua as being absent from that country. Overall, there is evidence that the frequency of cultivation of oats increased over the period of time that the Saxons ruled. Rye, Secale cereale, is documented in Sh century records from Norfolk, and thence throughout Saxon times. Unlike the oat, it is mentioned