From Evenk campfires to prehistoric hearths: charcoal analysis as a tool for identifying the use of rotten wood as fuel

A series of systematic experimental combustions on Pinus sylvestris (scots Pine) confirmed the existence of a relationship between the frequency and the intensity of fungal alterations visible after the combustion and the initial state of the wood used in the hearth. The establishment of an alteration index allows now to take a new parameter, the structural soundness of the wood, into account when performing archaeological charcoal analyses.