Pillows, mattresses or log coffin linings: use of cattail ( Typha sp.) in Roman period funerary rituals at Czarnówko in Pomerania

The preservation of organic remains is fickle, dependent on often highly localised conditions, but this incomplete record provides key insights into the lives, and deaths, of individuals in the past. Such is the case at the Wielbark culture cemetery in Czarnówko, northern Poland, where four graves were found to contain compacted layers of organic material. Identification of cattail ( Typha sp.) and woven fragments of high-quality wool within these masses suggest the remains of pillows, mattresses or linings that may reflect practices of furnishing not just burials but also domestic bedding practices within the Central European Barbaricum in the early centuries AD.