Plants in Burials: The Roman Iron Age Īles mežs Barrow Cemetery (Southern Latvia)

Abstract

Palaeobotanical analysis of the Īles mežs cemetery (southern Latvia) provides new insights into the role of plants in Roman Iron Age funerary traditions. This study focuses on the Īles mežs barrow VII (1 ^st –4 ^th century AD), where two inhumation burials were investigated. Pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs from soil beneath the skeletal remains were compared with control samples from the barrow structure and with a parallel sediment sequence from the nearby Lake Lielais Vipēdis. While the lake record reflects the wider forested landscape, the burial samples contained distinct plant remains (e.g., cereals, Filipendula , Polypodiaceae) that potentially suggest deliberate use of specific plants in burial practice. These plants may have served as food offerings or symbolic materials such as headrests or coverings. The results demonstrate that palaeobotanical approaches can reveal otherwise invisible aspects of mortuary practice and plausibly provide rare evidence of plant use in mortuary rituals of the Roman Iron Age in the Eastern Baltic region.