Andrew Sherratt's 'Water, soil and seasonality', World Archaeology (1980), signposted a long-term debate surrounding early farming adaptations to riverine landscapes in western Asia and Europe. ...Recent research at Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia, a key case study in Sherratt's 'floodplain cultivation' model, enables integrated, evidence-based assessment of the local hydrology and agroecology, and of farmers' resilience over more than a millennium. In contrast to previous models, the agroecological niche at Çatalhöyük featured strategic planting of diverse crops across a range of hydrological conditions, within and beyond a broad 'belt' of small anastomosing river channels extending a kilometre from the site. Growing conditions likely depended on location relative to settlement, a nutrient-rich 'hot spot', with diminishing inputs of organic matter and mechanical disturbance away from the tell. This reconstruction contrasts with the original model of 'floodplain cultivation' and demonstrates the complexity with which agroecologies evolved through landscape affordances, creative cropping, and resilience.
Experimental studies demonstrated that charring affects stable isotope values of plant remains. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the impact of charring to reliably interpret δ13C and δ15N ...values in archaeobotanical remains before using this approach to reconstruct past water management, paleoclimatic changes, and infer paleodietary patterns. Research so far has focused mostly on C3 plants while the charring effect on C4 plants is less understood. This study explored the effects of charring on δ13C, δ15N, %C, %N, and C:N in grains of two C4 species, Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench (NADP-ME) and Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone (heterotypic synonym Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br.) (NAD-ME), grown under the same controlled environmental conditions (watering, light, atmospheric humidity). Sorghum and pearl millet grains were charred from 1 to 3 h at 200–300 °C. Comparing first the uncharred grains, the results show that sorghum has lower δ15N and higher δ13C values than pearl millet. This evidence is also recorded in the charred grains. The charring experiments indicate that the temperature to which the grains are exposed has a higher impact than time on the preservation, mass loss, %C, %N, C:N, and δ13C and δ15N values. Every 50 °C of increase resulted in significant increases of δ15N (+0.37‰) and of δ13C (+0.06‰) values. Increasing the duration of charring to 3 h resulted in significant changes of δ15N (+0.17‰) and no significant changes for δ13C (−0.04‰) values. The average charring effects estimated in our experiment is 0.27‰ (95% CI between −0.02 and 0.56) for δ15N and −0.18‰ (95% CI between −0.30 and −0.06‰) for δ13C. Considering the average values, our data show that pearl millet is more affected by charring than sorghum; however, according to the standard deviations, sorghum shows a greater variability charring effect than pearl millet. This study provides new information to correctly assessing the isotopic values obtained from ancient C4 crops, providing a charring offset specific for C4 plants. Furthermore, it suggests that NAD-ME and NADP-ME species present isotopic differences under the same growing conditions and this must be taken into account in analytical works on ancient C4 crops.
•Sorghum (NADPME) and pearl millet (NADME) were grown under controlled ecological conditions.•Sorghum and pearl millet grains were experimentally charred (1–3 h, 200–300 °C).•Isotopic differences between NADPME and NADME are greater than the charring effect.•Charring affects pearl millet more than sorghum but sorghum shows wider variability.•The specific calculated C4 charring offsets should be used to archaeobotanical grains.
Archaeobotany, here taken as the study of archaeological plant macrofossil remains, is a mature and widely practised area of study within archaeology. However, plants are rarely seen as active ...participants in past societies. Recent critical evaluations of the field of archaeobotany have focused on methodological issues, chronological and regional overviews and biomolecular developments, rather than theoretical approaches or research practices. This article aims to reflect on future agendas in archaeobotany, which may improve the use and communication of archaeobotanical data, and invigorate discussion. First, the article briefly reviews the development of archaeobotany in Britain, before focusing discussion on the areas of data publication and archiving, and the application of archaeological theory to archaeobotanical remains. Opportunities provided by the 'plant turn' in social sciences and humanities are explored in relation to plant materiality. The use of the Internet in training and analysis is considered, before reflecting on how archaeobotany has been successfully communicated to broader audiences.
Findings of archaeological textiles and fibres in Northern Iberia are extremely rare. The occurrence of a set of textile fragments, dated between the 14th and 16th centuries CE at the Pambre castle ...(Palas de Rei, Lugo, Spain) is exceptional. The original stone roof of the southeastern tower was intact. The dark, cold and moist conditions inside the tower favoured the preservation of a unique series of waterlogged textile remains. In addition, a set of pseudomorphs preserved by mineral replacement were recovered from the east edge of the north wing in the main hall of the castle. Fibres have been identified using optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and they have been chemically characterised using Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDX). We also performed analytical pyrolysis-GC-MS (Py-GC-MS) and thermally assisted hydrolysis and methylation (THM-GC-MS) of the wool fabrics and pseudomorphs to assess their state of degradation and the presence of chemical markers associated to the use of these textile remains. High performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD-MS) and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS/MS) analysis were applied on wool fabrics to identify the chemical markers of dyes but without success. To expand the information related to raw material identification and the technical aspects of the fabrics, further evidence such as adherences identified as opal phytoliths, seeds, and insect remains associated to wool fabrics were examined. These findings offer a unique glimpse into the clothing dated to the end of the Medieval period, and its life-cycle. Wool scraps were probably part of at least two different garments, whereas the mineralised textiles probably formed part of at least two brigandines which were made of bast fibres, flax, or hemp.
•The study offers a glimpse into clothing between the 14th and 16th centuries CE.•An interdisciplinary approach was designed to address textile biographies.•Wool fabrics were subjected to successive alterations that changed their morphology.•Metallic pseudomorphs belong to one or, more likely, several brigandines.
•This paper offers a model for analysing botany-ceramics relations (BCR).•The spatial relation between plants and ceramics forms the core of the model.•The model is not restricted to a region or time ...period.•The model hopes to stimulate interaction between various specialists.
It is widely acknowledged that context is of the utmost importance for the interpretation of the archaeological record. Context is often interpreted in terms of the feature or settlement in which a particular find was made, but context is also formed through association with other finds or finds categories. This conceptual contribution approaches the theme of context from the perspective of two major archaeological finds categories and/or disciplines: plants and ceramic objects. It is not the context of either of these categories in itself but, rather, the spatial relationship between these categories that forms the core of a model for systematically analysing botany–ceramics relations (BCR). The model comprises six spatial categories, based on the position of the plant remains relative to the studied ceramic object. The model further comprises the type of plant remains involved, the type of preservation (both at the point when the relationship was first established and at the point when the relationship was encountered in the archaeological record), and the degree to which the relationship was created intentionally (degree of intention: DoI). The applicability of the model is by no means restricted in time and space, and it could easily be extended to other, non-botanical or non-ceramic proxies.
Understanding the interplay between subsistence strategies and settlement patterns is fundamental for understanding past social-economic and cultural changes. Around the third millennium BC in the ...Zhengluo region of China, settlement hierarchies with two or three -tiered settlements were established. However, the detailed economic dynamics of settlement stratification in this area have not yet been clearly illustrated. In this paper, we report the new human isotopic data and archaeobotanical evidences with radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites of different scales in the Zhengluo region. The primary objective is to further assess the manner in which human populations among different scales of settlements in the Zhengluo region organized their subsistence strategies during the late Yangshao period (around 3500BC-2600BCE) by combining these new data with previous archaeological studies.
Mixed crop cultivation including millet crops and non-millet crops (rice and/or soybean) was a stable agricultural pattern in center settlements, and pure millet agricultural only appeared in ordinary settlements. Meanwhile, human dietary patterns from center settlements were more diversified compared with the homogenous diets among inhabitants of the ordinary settlements. The distinct human dietary patterns at these two different types of sites results from and reflect their different responses of subsistence strategies to social dynamics. As settlements expanded and populations increased, stable millet cultivation guaranteed the essential food supply, and that the popularization of rice (a crop from the South) and the adoption of a new crop, soybeans, could diversify the agricultural patterns, expand the food supply and reduce the risks associated with food production in center settlements. Meanwhile, ordinary settlements still persisted with a more conservative subsistence strategy focused on millet agriculture. The different and successful coping strategies by late Yangshao inhabitants in Zhengluo region were the driving force in the emergence of the episode of peak social development in this area and likely important for populations and settlements in the following revolutionary periods “Longshan-Erlitou” in the same area.
•This study examined human diets and crop patterns in different scales of sites of late Yangshao period in Zhengluo region.•Food choices of humans from center settlements were more diversified.•Agricultural intensification varied in accordance with the scales of settlements.•Settlement hierarchies showed a solid correlation with agricultural intensification and dietary diversification.
On the basis of different methods, researchers have reached different and sometimes contradicting conclusions on the question, when regular woodland management started in Europe. While some ...reconstruct systematic woodland management already in the Neolithic, others found it altogether improbable that woodland management should have been invented in prehistoric times. This study critically reviews the applied methods and their respective data. The aim is not only to learn about their respective strengths and weaknesses and certainly not to decide on the winner. Rather, we try to reflect on basic assumptions and whether these are the reason for seeming contradictions.
Archaeological research in Central Eurasia is exposing unprecedented scales of trans-regional interaction and technology transfer between East Asia and southwest Asia deep into the prehistoric past. ...This article presents a new archaeobotanical analysis from pastoralist campsites in the mountain and desert regions of Central Eurasia that documents the oldest known evidence for domesticated grains and farming among seasonally mobile herders. Carbonized grains from the sites of Tasbas and Begash illustrate the first transmission of southwest Asian and East Asian domesticated grains into the mountains of Inner Asia in the early third millennium BC. By the middle second millennium BC, seasonal camps in the mountains and deserts illustrate that Eurasian herders incorporated the cultivation of millet, wheat, barley and legumes into their subsistence strategy. These findings push back the chronology for domesticated plant use among Central Eurasian pastoralists by approximately 2000 years. Given the geography, chronology and seed morphology of these data, we argue that mobile pastoralists were key agents in the spread of crop repertoires and the transformation of agricultural economies across Asia from the third to the second millennium BC.
Abstract The Canary Islands were the first part of the Macaronesian archipelago to have been settled by humans. The various ways in which the indigenous inhabitants and later European colonisers ...interacted with the native and endemic flora is a central topic for archaeologists, geographers and ecologists. Floristic changes can be studied from phytoliths which are plant microfossils with a high potential for preservation in sediment deposits and they can help reconstruct past ways of life and vegetation changes through time. However, there is no comprehensive and systematic study and reference collection of phytoliths produced by the flora of the Canary Islands, so far. To make a start with a first phytolith reference collection of a selection of plants relevant for the study of past socio-ecological interactions there, we processed over a hundred modern plant specimens collected on the islands of Tenerife, Gran Canaria and La Palma to obtain the phytoliths from them, using the dry-ashing method. We then described the phytolith morphologies, and counted the numbers of morphotypes for each species. We have categorised taxa according to their phytolith concentration and production of morphotypes with diagnostic potential. Our results suggest that among the selected taxa, species within the Arecaceae, Boraginaceae, Cyperaceae, Poaceae and Urticaceae families are the main native producers of phytoliths in the archipelago. We also identified phytoliths with diagnostic potential in particular species within the Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Cistaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Lamiaceae, Lauraceae, Ranunculaceae and Rubiaceae. We discuss how phytolith assemblages can be interpreted in archaeological sites and sediment records. Our growing reference collection is a significant step towards the application of phytolith analysis to disentangle the long-term climatic and human-driven transformation of this biodiversity hotspot, as well as the cultural use of plant resources.
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