Bronze Age fuel: the oldest direct evidence for deep peat cutting and stack construction?

Peat has been used as a fuel and as an additive to arable fields to aid fertility since prehistoric times in many parts of northern Europe (e.g. Fenton 1986; Whittle et al. 1986). The cutting of deep peat and the construction of peat stacks as part of the drying process has been documented from Medieval times, but the antiquity of such activities is unknown. Peat stacks are ephemeral structures whose purpose is to aid the drying of hard-won, wet peat in areas where other fuels such as wood and coal are expensive or unobtainable. They are typically cleared within a few months of construction and leave no traces of their former presence. Here we report the unprecedented discovery of a ‘fossil’ pyramidal peat stack dating to the 2nd millennium BC, from the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Individual turves contained finger and thumb impressions and pollen analysis reveals environmental conditions at around the time of cutting. The method of extracting and stacking the peat used some 3500 years ago may be similar to that used today.