New archaeobotanical finds from Baradla Cave Mervel, Máté
Dissertationes archaeologicae ex Instituto Archaeologico Universitatis de Rolando Eötvös Nominatae.,
03/2024, Letnik:
3, Številka:
11
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Baradla Cave is located in the Aggtelek Karst Region in Northern Hungary; it is one of the oldest known prehistoric sites in the country. The first excavations there in 1876–1877 are considered a ...milestone in Hungarian archaeology, and the research involved the first archaeobotanical analyses in Hungary. Although the cave was used in many periods with varied intensity, the vast majority of the artefacts are dated to the Middle Neolithic, while the Late Bronze Age represents a smaller but still significant portion of the archaeological record. The latest rescue excavation was carried out in 2019 in the Róka-ág Róka branch of the cave by a team from the Institute of Archaeological Sciences of the Eötvös Loránd University. This paper presents the preliminary results obtained from the archaeobotanical analyses of the macro-remains recovered from the soil samples collected during this excavation. The charred remains were badly preserved, but it was possible to identify, among other seeds, emmer, barley, pea, and lentil. The uncertain dating of the samples further complicated the interpretation of the archaeobotanical finds.
This paper aims to present new archaeobotanical data from the Late Bronze Age settlement of Tállya-Óvár in the North Hungarian Mountains. Upon investigating the area around a bronze hoard found ...earlier, the floor of a building was unearthed, and 16 archaeobotanical samples were taken. The interpretation of the botanical finds was difficult due to a low to medium density of remains and the judgement sampling method. This paper focuses mainly on cereal remains, attempting to interpret them by comparing them with the record of contemporary sites in Hungary and placing them in a broader European context. The samples from Tállya-Óvár were dominated by spelt, barley, and millet. In general, the archaeobotanical assemblage fits the hypotheses concerning Late Bronze Age agriculture. These results are important because no archaeobotanical data have yet been published from high-altitude fortified settlements in the North Hungarian Mountains.
Ancient literary sources from the Hellenistic and Roman world describe the wide-spread practices of funerary feasting and supplying offerings for the deceased. However, the funerary customs of the ...Nabataeans are still not clearly understood within this broader cultural sphere. Evidence for feasting in Nabataean mortuary contexts largely relies on ceramic and faunal remains but rarely are plant remains included in these analyses. This paper presents archaeobotanical evidence from Nabatean-period tomb deposits from Petra, Jordan, to highlight the role plants played in this type of ritual context. Analysis of samples taken from eight rock-cut shaft tombs, excavated over three seasons (2012, 2014 and 2016), on the North Ridge of Petra, indicates the presence of a variety foodstuffs such as Triticum sp. (wheats), Hordeum vulgare (barley), Lens culinaris (lentil), Vitis vinifera (grape), Ficus carica (fig), Olea europaea (olive) and Phoenix dactylifera (date). These finds provide intriguing evidence of plants consumed or used as offerings during funerary ritual events. This study, in association with the analysis of bioarchaeological remains and ceramics expands our knowledge of Nabataean funerary practices and contributes to a broader understanding of the role of plants in ritual funerary events in the ancient world.
The origins of bread have long been associated with the emergence of agriculture and cereal domestication during the Neolithic in southwest Asia. In this study we analyze a total of 24 charred food ...remains from Shubayqa 1, a Natufian hunter-gatherer site located in northeastern Jordan and dated to 14.6–11.6 ka cal BP. Our finds provide empirical data to demonstrate that the preparation and consumption of bread-like products predated the emergence of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. The interdisciplinary analyses indicate the use of some of the “founder crops” of southwest Asian agriculture (e.g., Triticum boeoticum, wild einkorn) and root foods (e.g., Bolboschoenus glaucus, club-rush tubers) to produce flat bread-like products. The available archaeobotanical evidence for the Natufian period indicates that cereal exploitation was not common during this time, and it is most likely that cereal-based meals like bread become staples only when agriculture was firmly established.
MicroCT visualisations of organic inclusions within pottery sherds from Khashm el Girba 23 (KG23), Sudan, reveal domesticated sorghum (Sorghum bicolor subsp. bicolor) at c. 3700–2900 BCE. The ...percentage of non-shattering spikelet bases was c. 73% of identifiable visualizations, with c. 27% representing wild types. These analyses demonstrate the domestication of sorghum is significantly earlier than suggested by previous archaeological research. These results also demonstrate that microCT scanning is a major qualitative and quantitative advance on pre-existing methods for the investigation of crop remains in pottery sherds, which hitherto have been reliant on surface impressions; it is non-destructive, provides higher resolution 3D imaging of organic inclusions, and enables greater archaeobotanical recovery of inclusions within a sherd. MicroCT analysis of ceramics, mudbrick and other building materials has considerable potential for improving the chronologies and resolution for the domestication of other cereals in the past.
•MicroCT and 3D visualisation used to determine domestication status of sorghum impressions (Sorghum spp.) preserved within pottery sherds.•MicroCT scanning of sherds represents methodological improvement, both quantitative and qualitative, on the use of surface impression data.•Domesticated sorghum (Sorghum bicolor subsp. Bicolor) present by at least 3700-2900 cal. BC in eastern Sudan.•Sorghum domesticated earlier than hitherto documented, although region of domestication unknown.
We used polymerase chain reactions specific for the wheat B and G genomes with nine accessions of the “new” glume wheat (NGW), a type of cultivated wheat that was present across western Asia and ...Europe during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages but which apparently died out before the end of the 1st millennium BC. DNA sequences from the G genome were detected in two NGW accessions, the first comprising grain from the mid 7th millennium BC at Çatalhöyük in Turkey, and the second made up of chaff from the later 5th millennium BC site of Miechowice 4 in Kuyavia, Poland. The Miechowice chaff also yielded a B genome sequence, which we ascribe to an admixture of emmer wheat chaff recorded in the sample from which the NGW material was extracted. Our results therefore provide evidence that NGW is a member of the Triticum timopheevii group of wheats. Triticum timopheevii subsp. timopheevii can therefore no longer be looked upon as a minor crop, restricted to western Georgia, but instead must be viewed as a significant component of prehistoric Eurasian agriculture, with implications for our understanding of the origins of agriculture in southwest Asia.
•The new glume wheat (NGW) is an extinct type of cultivated wheat.•It has similarities with emmer but is thought to be a distinct species.•We used ancient DNA typing to show that NGW contains a G genome.•The results show that NGW is a member of the Triticum timopheevii group.•T. timopheevii was therefore a significant crop in prehistoric Eurasian agriculture.
Vegetatively propagated crops are globally significant in terms of current agricultural production, as well as for understanding the long-term history of early agriculture and plant domestication. ...Today, significant field crops include sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum), potato (Solanum tuberosum), manioc (Manihot esculenta), bananas and plantains (Musa cvs), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), yams (Dioscorea spp.) and taro (Colocasia esculenta). In comparison with sexually reproduced crops, especially cereals and legumes, the domestication syndrome in vegetatively propagated field crops is poorly defined.
Here, a range of phenotypic traits potentially comprising a syndrome associated with early domestication of vegetatively propagated field crops is proposed, including: mode of reproduction, yield of edible portion, ease of harvesting, defensive adaptations, timing of production and plant architecture. The archaeobotanical visibility of these syndrome traits is considered with a view to the reconstruction of the geographical and historical pathways of domestication for vegetatively propagated field crops in the past.
Although convergent phenotypic traits are identified, none of them are ubiquitous and some are divergent. In contrast to cereals and legumes, several traits seem to represent varying degrees of plastic response to growth environment and practices of cultivation, as opposed to solely morphogenetic 'fixation'.
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