Late pleistocene exploitation of Ephedra in a funerary context in Morocco.

The active compounds found in many plants have been widely used in traditional medicine and ritual activities. However, archaeological evidence for the use of such plants, especially in the Palaeolithic period, is limited due to the poor preservation and fragility of seed, fruit, and other botanical macro-remains. In this study, we investigate the presence and possible uses of Ephedra during the Late Pleistocene based on the analysis of exceptionally preserved plant macrofossils recovered from c. 15 ka year-old archaeological deposits at Grotte des Pigeons in northeastern Morocco. This cave has yielded the earliest carbonized plant macrofossils of Ephedra, which were found concentrated in a human burial deposit along with other special finds. Ephedra is a plant known to produce high amounts of alkaloids, primarily ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which have been utilized in traditional medicine. Direct radiocarbon dates on both Ephedra and the human remains indicate that they were contemporaneous. To understand the uses of Ephedra by people at the site, we discuss the different pathways through which plant remains could have arrived. We suggest that the charred cone bracts of Ephedra likely represent residues of the processing and consumption of the plant's fleshy cones, which may have been valued for both their nutritional and therapeutic properties. Furthermore, we interpret the presence of Ephedra and its deposition in the burial area as evidence that this plant played a significant role during the funerary activities.

Food and Environment During the Late Roman Age at the Site of Alba Fucens (Abruzzi, Italy).

Archaeobotanical analyses in Italy are uneven in terms of geographical and chronological distribution. Amongst the different regions, Abruzzi is poorly represented, with only one study covering the Roman Age. In this framework, the analyses carried out on carpological remains collected from the Late Roman (late 5th-early 6th century AD) filling of a well in the Sanctuary of Hercules in Alba Fucens represents an important addition to the state of the art. The plant assemblage consists of over 1500 remains attributed to 68 different taxa. These are partly represented by gathered fruit plants, such as Corylus avellana, Juglans regia and Sambucus nigra, while cereals and pulses are missing. An interesting aspect is represented by evergreen plants (Pinus pinea and Cupressus sempervirens) that are likely to have been used for ritual purposes rather than for human consumption. Finally, the impressive amount of ruderal and spontaneous plants represents a unicum for this type of study, allowing us to describe the past environment surrounding Alba Fucens, characterized by substantial water availability, Apennine grasslands and influenced by human presence.

Seed morphometrics unravels the evolutionary history of grapevine in France.

The cultivation of grapevines has spanned millennia, leading to thousands of varieties through exchanges, mutations, and crosses between genotypes, as well probably as gene flow from wild populations. These varieties are typically categorized by regional origin and primary use, either for wine production or fruit consumption. France, within the Western European group, hosts many of the world's renowned wine grape varieties. However, the historical development of cultivated grapevines in France and in the world remains poorly understood. This study applies morphometry on 19,377 charred and waterlogged archaeological grape pips to investigate the evolutionary history of grapevine in France over the last 10,000 years. The study compares seed outlines and lengths, corrected for taphonomic distortions, with a reference collection of 80 wild and 466 modern domestic grapevine accessions. Findings reveal a shift from wild grapevine exploitation to the expansion of domestic varieties around 600-500 BCE, coinciding with Mediterranean cultural influences and the introduction of eastern grape types. The identification of the East-Table group, a group of varieties of eastern origin for fruit consumption, indicates that grapes were also grown for food, especially in Mediterranean regions and near urban areas, alongside wine production. Early French viticulture featured a notable presence of Western European wine-type grapevines. The abundance of pips with wild-like morphology suggests early cultivation involved plants at an initial domestication stage and gene flow between introduced and wild grapevines. As viticulture spread northward, wild and Eastern morphotypes declined, leading to the dominance of Western European wine types in inner France during the Middle Ages.

Early archaeological evidence of wheat and cotton from medieval Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

This study reports the earliest directly dated occurrence of archaeological wheat and cotton in the humid forests of West Africa. These are the first archaeobotanical results from the medieval urban center of Ile-Ife, southwestern Nigeria, best known for its famous artworks. Both wheat and cotton likely spread through trans-Saharan trade networks that laid the foundation for later European trade systems. Forty-eight (48) grains of free-threshing wheat (Triticum aestivum/durum) represent the largest assemblage of wheat recovered in sub-Saharan West Africa, which is surprising given that wheat cannot be cultivated locally. Larger quantities of cotton (Gossypium sp.) recovered from late 12th- to early 13th-century CE contexts suggest earlier and more widespread use than wheat. Cotton may have been cultivated and manufactured into cloth locally. The quick adoption of these exotic crops illustrates the active negotiation of prestige through culinary and adornment practices, as well as a high degree of agricultural experimentation.

Inter- and intra-observer variation in phytolith morphometry.

BACKGROUND: Archaeobotanists and palaeoecologists extensively use geometric morphometrics to identify plant opal phytoliths. Particularly when applied to assemblages of phytoliths from concentrations retrieved from closed contexts, morphometric data from archaeological phytoliths compared with similar data from reference material may allow taxonomic attribution. Observer variation is one aspect of phytolith morphometry that has received little attention but may be an important source of error, and hence cause of potential misidentification of plant remains. SCOPE: To investigate inter- and intra-observer variation in phytolith morphometry, eight researchers (observers) from different laboratories measured 50 samples each from three phytolith morphotypes, Bilobate, Bulliform flabellate and Elongate dendritic, three times, under the auspices of the International Committee for Phytolith Morphometrics (ICPM). METHODS: Data for 17 size and shape variables were collected for each phytolith by manually digitising a phytolith outline (mask) from a photograph, followed by measurement of the mask with open-source morphometric software. KEY RESULTS: Inter-observer variation ranged from 0 to 23% difference from the mean of all observers. Intra-observer variation ranged from 0 to 9% difference from the mean of individual observers per week. Inter- and intra-observer variation was generally higher among inexperienced researchers. CONCLUSIONS: Scaling errors were a major cause of variation and occurred more with less experienced researchers, which is likely related to familiarity with data collection. The results indicate that inter- and intra-observer variation can be substantially reduced by providing clear instructions for and training with the equipment, photo capturing, software, data collection and data cleaning. In this paper, the ICPM provides recommendations to minimise variation.Advances in automatic data collection may eventually reduce inter- and intra-observer variation, but until this is common practice, the ICPM recommends that phytolith morphometric analyses adhere to standardised guidelines to assure that measured phytolith variables are accurate, consistent and comparable between different researchers and laboratories.

The evolution of cropping structure in prehistoric Xizang.

The origin and spread of agriculture facilitated a decline in human mobility and eventually led to a predominantly sedentary lifestyle globally, including on the Tibetan Plateau. Previous studies have proposed an evolution of prehistoric agriculture, from millet-based to barley-based farming. However, details regarding the process are vague. Here, we present diachronic changes in cropping structure from Xizang on the basis of a quantitative analysis of archaeobotanical remains from 12 sites located in southeastern Xizang. The advent of agriculture in Xizang began in the southeastern region around 4800 cal a BP and resulted in a quick spread of millet agriculture from the Hengduan Mountains to the Yarlung Zangbo River region. Subsequently, the introduction of barley and wheat in Xizang led to the transformation of millet-based farming into mixed farming after 3600 cal a BP. Eventually, around 3000 cal a BP, barley and wheat dominated across the entire Xizang with declining occurrences of millet. It took more than 600 years for barley and wheat to dominate in the Tibetan cropping system, which may reflect the time required for these exotic species to adapt physiologically to their new niche. In addition to the diachronic changes in crop farming, the ratio of barley to wheat and foxtail millet to broomcorn millet also varied at different elevations possibly due to local environmental variations and the crops' physiological requirements.

Morphometric approaches to Cannabis evolution and differentiation from archaeological sites: interpreting the archaeobotanical evidence from bronze age Haimenkou, Yunnan.

Cannabis grains are frequently reported from archaeological sites in Asia, and hypothesized centers of origins are China and Central Asia. Chinese early cannabis remains are often interpreted as evidence of hemp fabric production, in line with early textual evidence describing ritualistic hemp cloth use and hemp cultivation as a grain crop. Modern measurements on cannabis varieties show distinct sizes between fibre or oil/fibre and psychoactive varieties, the former having larger seeds on average than the latter. This paper reviews the current macro-botanical evidence for cannabis across East, Central and South Asia and builds a comparative framework based on modern cannabis seed measurements to help identify cannabis use in the past, through the metric analysis of archaeologically preserved seeds. Over 800 grains of cannabis were retrieved from the 2008 excavation of Haimenkou, Yunnan, Southwest China, dating to between 1650 and 400 bc. These are compared with other known archaeological cannabis and interpreted through the metric framework. This offers a basis for exploration of the seed morphometrics potential to infer cannabis cultivation and diversification in uses. At Haimenkou, cannabis seeds size mostly plot in the range of overlapping psychoactive/fibre types; we therefore suggest that the cannabis assemblage from Haimenkou is indicative of a crop beginning to undergo evolution from its early domesticated form towards a diversified crop specialized for alternative uses, including larger oilseed/fibre adapted varieties. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00334-023-00966-6.

Seeing the fields through the weeds: introducing the WeedEco R package for comparing past and present arable farming systems using functional weed ecology.

The functional ecology of arable weeds provides a way of comparing present-day and past farming regimes. This paper presents the R package WeedEco, an open-source resource which allows users to compare their archaeobotanical dataset against three previously published arable weed models to understand fertility, disturbance or a combination of both. The package provides functions for data organisation, classification and visualisation, allowing users to enter raw archaeobotanical data, obtain trait values from the functional trait dataset, conduct discriminant analysis and plot the results against the relevant present-day model. Using data from the early medieval site of Stafford in the UK, the paper provides a detailed example of the use of the package, demonstrating its different functions, as well as how the results can be interpreted. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00334-023-00964-8.

Exploring the complex pre-adaptations of invasive plants to anthropogenic disturbance: a call for integration of archaeobotanical approaches.

Pre-adaptation to anthropogenic disturbance is broadly considered key for plant invasion success. Nevertheless, empirical evidence remains scarce and fragmentary, given the multifaceted nature of anthropogenic disturbance itself and the complexity of other evolutionary forces shaping the (epi)-genomes of recent native and invasive plant populations. Here, we review and critically revisit the existing theory and empirical evidence in the field of evolutionary ecology and highlight novel integrative research avenues that work at the interface with archaeology to solve open questions. The approaches suggested so far focus on contemporary plant populations, although their genomes have rapidly changed since their initial introduction in response to numerous selective and stochastic forces. We elaborate that a role of pre-adaptation to anthropogenic disturbance in plant invasion success should thus additionally be validated based on the analyses of archaeobotanical remains. Such materials, in the light of detailed knowledge on past human societies could highlight fine-scale differences in the type and timing of past disturbances. We propose a combination of archaeobotanical, ancient DNA and morphometric analyses of plant macro- and microremains to assess past community composition, and species' functional traits to unravel the timing of adaptation processes, their drivers and their long-term consequences for invasive species. Although such methodologies have proven to be feasible for numerous crop plants, they have not been yet applied to wild invasive species, which opens a wide array of insights into their evolution.

Unraveling the diversity and cultural heritage of fruit crops through paleogenomics.

Abundant and plentiful fruit crops are threatened by the loss of diverse legacy cultivars which are being replaced by a limited set of high-yielding ones. This article delves into the potential of paleogenomics that utilizes ancient DNA analysis to revive lost diversity. By focusing on grapevines, date palms, and tomatoes, recent studies showcase the effectiveness of paleogenomic techniques in identifying and understanding genetic traits crucial for crop resilience, disease resistance, and nutritional value. The approach not only tracks landrace dispersal and introgression but also sheds light on domestication events. In the face of major future environmental challenges, integrating paleogenomics with modern breeding strategies emerges as a promising avenue to significantly bolster fruit crop sustainability.

Insect Pests of Pulse Crops and their Management in Neolithic Europe.

Insect pests affecting standing and stored crops can cause severe damage and reduce yields considerably. Was this also the case in Neolithic Europe? Did early farming populations take a certain amount of harvest loss into account? Did they decide to change crops or rotate them when they became too infested? Did they obtain new crops from neighbouring communities as part of this process? Or did they actively fight against pests? This paper focuses on pulse crop pests, presenting the earliest evidence of fava beans displaying boreholes and of the presence of pea weevil in two different archaeological sites: Can Sadurní (in a phase dated to ca. 4800-4500 cal BC), located in the NE Iberian Peninsula and Zürich-Parkhaus Opéra (in a phase dated to ca. 3160 BC), located in Central Switzerland. Evidence suggests that early farmers were aware of the damages produced by pests and we propose different strategies for their management, including potential evidence for the use of repellent or trap plants in the plots.

Unprecedented yet gradual nature of first millennium CE intercontinental crop plant dispersal revealed in ancient Negev desert refuse.

Global agro-biodiversity has resulted from processes of plant migration and agricultural adoption. Although critically affecting current diversity, crop diffusion from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages is poorly researched, overshadowed by studies on that of prehistoric periods. A new archaeobotanical dataset from three Negev Highland desert sites demonstrates the first millennium CE's significance for long-term agricultural change in Southwest Asia. This enables evaluation of the 'Islamic Green Revolution (IGR)' thesis compared to 'Roman Agricultural Diffusion (RAD)', and both versus crop diffusion during and since the Neolithic. Among the findings, some of the earliest aubergine (Solanum melongena) seeds in the Levant represent the proposed IGR. Several other identified economic plants, including two unprecedented in Levantine archaeobotany-jujube (Ziziphus jujuba/mauritiana) and white lupine (Lupinus albus)-implicate RAD as the greater force for crop migrations. Altogether the evidence supports a gradualist model for Holocene-wide crop diffusion, within which the first millennium CE contributed more to global agricultural diversity than any earlier period.

The experimental heating of rye, oat, spelt, wheat and barley between 215 and 300 °C: the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data and the photographic evidence of changes to the morphology of the grains.

The effect that heating has on cereal grain morphology and isotopic values has far reaching consequences for archaeobotanical research and palaeodietary reconstructions. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic data and mass loss percentages on, and photographs of, rye, oat, barley, wheat and spelt from a heating experiment are presented and support Stroud et al. (2023). The experiment heated rye, oat, and spelt at 215 °C, 230 °C, 245 °C, 260 °C and 300 °C for 4 h, 8h and 24 h, with each temperature/duration condition consisting of 3 samples of 10 grains per sample. The mass loss of the grains, the %C and %N, and δ13C and δ15N values are presented. Furthermore, photographs of the grains' external and internal morphology for each temperature/duration combination are provided. The wheat and barley data of samples charred between 215 °C and 260 °C/ 4-24 h were obtained from the published and unpublished dataset of Nitsch et al. (2015) and it is this dataset which the new data builds upon. This article also provides the published and unpublished data and photographs from Nitsch et al. (2015), bringing together a dataset of nine crop species. This article provides the raw data from two cereal grain heating experiment, which will enable further research into understanding the impact of heating on both grain isotopic values and grain morphology. It also allows users to construct charred-uncharred isotopic offsets for a combination of species relevant to their research.

Food globalization in southern Central Asia: archaeobotany at Bukhara between antiquity and the Middle Ages.

The Silk Road is a modern name for a globalization phenomenon that marked an extensive network of communication and exchange in the ancient world; by the turn of the second millennium AD, commercial trade linked Asia and supported the development of a string of large urban centers across Central Asia. One of the main arteries of the medieval trade routes followed the middle and lower Zarafshan River and was connected by mercantile cities, such as Samarkand and Bukhara. Bukhara developed into a flourishing urban center between the fourth and sixth centuries AD, served as the capital of the Samanid court between AD 893 and 999, and remained prosperous into the Qarakhanid period (AD 999-1220), until the Mongol invasion in AD 1220. We present the first archaeobotanical study from this ancient center of education, craft production, artistic development, and commerce. Radiocarbon dates and an archaeological chronology that has been developed for the site show that our samples cover a range between the third and eleventh centuries AD. These samples from Bukhara represent the richest systematically collected archaeobotanical assemblage thus far recovered in Central Asia. The assemblage includes spices and both annual and perennial crops, which allowed Sogdians and Samanids to feed large cities in river oases surrounded by desert and arid steppe and supported a far-reaching commercial market in the first millennium AD. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12520-023-01827-z.

On the verge of domestication: Early use of C4 plants in the Horn of Africa.

The earliest evidence of agriculture in the Horn of Africa dates to the Pre-Aksumite period (ca. 1600 BCE). Domesticated C3 cereals are considered to have been introduced from the Near East, whereas the origin (local or not) and time of domestication of various African C4 species such as sorghum, finger millet, or t'ef remain unknown. In this paper, we present the results of the analysis of microbotanical residues (starch and phytoliths) from grinding stones recovered from two archaeological sites in northeastern Tigrai (Ethiopia), namely Mezber and Ona Adi. Together, both sites cover a time period that encompasses the earliest evidence of agriculture in the region (ca. 1600 BCE) to the fall of the Kingdom of Aksum (ca. 700 CE). Our data indicate that these communities featured complex mixed economies which included the consumption of both domestic and wild plant products since the Initial Pre-Aksumite Phase (ca. 1600 to 900 BCE), including C3 crops and legumes, but also C4 cereals and geophytes. These new data expand the record of C4 plant use in the Horn of Africa to over 1,000 y. It also represents the first evidence for the consumption of starchy products in the region. These results have parallels in the wider northeastern African region where complex food systems have been documented. Altogether, our data represent a significant challenge to our current knowledge of Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite economies, forcing us to rethink the way we define these cultural horizons.

Prehistoric Plant Exploitation and Domestication: An Inspiration for the Science of De Novo Domestication in Present Times.

De novo domestication is a novel trend in plant genetics, where traits of wild or semi-wild species are changed by the use of modern precision breeding techniques so that they conform to modern cultivation. Out of more than 300,000 wild plant species, only a few were fully domesticated by humans in prehistory. Moreover, out of these few domesticated species, less than 10 species dominate world agricultural production by more than 80% today. Much of this limited diversity of crop exploitation by modern humans was defined early in prehistory at the emergence of sedentary agro-pastoral cultures that limited the number of crops evolving a favorable domestication syndrome. However, modern plant genetics have revealed the roadmaps of genetic changes that led to these domestication traits. Based on such observations, plant scientists are now taking steps towards using modern breeding technologies to explore the potential of de novo domestication of plant species that were neglected in the past. We suggest here that in this process of de novo domestication, the study of Late Paleolithic/Late Archaic and Early Neolithic/Early Formative exploration of wild plants and identification of neglected species can help identify the barriers towards domestication. Modern breeding technologies may then assist us to break these barriers in order to perform de novo domestication to increase the crop species diversity of modern agriculture.

Ancient DNA from a lost Negev Highlands desert grape reveals a Late Antiquity wine lineage.

Recent excavations of Late Antiquity settlements in the Negev Highlands of southern Israel uncovered a society that established commercial-scale viticulture in an arid environment [D. Fuks et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117, 19780-19791 (2020)]. We applied target-enriched genome-wide sequencing and radiocarbon dating to examine grapevine pips that were excavated at three of these sites. Our analyses revealed centuries long and continuous grape cultivation in the Southern Levant. The genetically diverse pips also provided clues to ancient cultivation strategies aimed at improving agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. Applying genomic prediction analysis, a pip dated to the eighth century CE was determined to likely be from a white grape, to date the oldest to be identified. In a kinship analysis, another pip was found to be descendant from a modern Greek cultivar and was thus linked with several popular historic wines that were once traded across the Byzantine Empire. These findings shed light on historical Byzantine trading networks and on the genetic contribution of Levantine varieties to the classic Aegean landscape.

The history of olive cultivation in the southern Levant.

The olive tree (Olea europaea L. subsp. europaea var. europaea) is one of the most important crops across the Mediterranean, particularly the southern Levant. Its regional economic importance dates at least to the Early Bronze Age (~3600 BCE) and its cultivation contributed significantly to the culture and heritage of ancient civilizations in the region. In the southern Levant, pollen, pits and wood remains of wild olives (O. europaea subsp. europaea var. sylvestris) has been found in Middle Pleistocene sediments dating to approximately 780 kya, and are present in numerous palynological sequences throughout the Pleistocene and into the Holocene. Archeological evidence indicates the olive oil production from at least the Pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic transition (~7600-7000 BP), and clear evidence for cultivation by, 7000 BP. It is hypothesized that olive cultivation began through the selection of local genotypes of the wild var. sylvestris. Local populations of naturally growing trees today have thus been considered wild relatives of the olive. However, millennia of cultivation raises questions about whether genuine populations of var. sylvestris remain in the region. Ancient olive landraces might thus represent an ancient genetic stock closer to the ancestor gene pool. This review summarizes the evidence supporting the theory that olives were first cultivated in the southern Levant and reviews our genetic work characterizing local ancient cultivars. The significance and importance of old cultivars and wild populations are discussed, given the immediate need to adapt agricultural practices and crops to environmental degradation and global climate change.

Charring-induced morphological changes of Chinese "Five Grains": An experimental study.

Introduction: Charring process affects the preservation potential of seeds, resulting in limited perceptions of crop assemblages recovered from archaeological layers. Therefore, the specifics of the charring process deserve further investigation. Colloquially referred to as the "Five Grains" (), bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), foxtail millet (Setaria italica), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), rice (Oryza sativa), and soybean (Glycine max) represent a set of four major cultivated cereals and a pulse constituting crucial staple food in Chinese history and the most frequently discovered crops at archaeological sites in China. Methods: This paper aims to understand the changes in size, volume, and weight loss of grains under variable aerobic charring conditions. The size and weight were measured for the untreated specimens and the specimens heated at different temperatures and over different time-periods. Results: We found that temperature and exposure time directly affected the grain size. Specifically, the grains of most species shrank at lower temperatures and expanded rapidly at higher temperatures. Discussion: Among the "Five Grains", soybean was the type least affected by charring, followed by wheat, rice, and millet. Volume and weight can be used as conversion factors to minimize the bias in quantitative representation due to varied charring preservation potential. For rice, wheat and soybean, the variation in volume is smaller. For millet, both volume and weight can be used as the control to understand the consequences of charring for the assemblage. Further experiments and comparisons of ancient samples are needed in future studies to investigate other factors that affect the preservation of charred plant remains.

Brassica and Sinapis Seeds in Medieval Archaeological Sites: An Example of Multiproxy Analysis for Their Identification and Ethnobotanical Interpretation.

The genus Brassica includes some of the most important vegetable and oil crops worldwide. Many Brassica seeds (which can show diagnostic characters useful for species identification) were recovered from two archaeological sites in northern Italy, dated from between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We tested the combined use of archaeobotanical keys, ancient DNA barcoding, and references to ancient herbarium specimens to address the issue of diagnostic uncertainty. An unequivocal conventional diagnosis was possible for much of the material recovered, with the samples dominated by five Brassica species and Sinapis. The analysis using ancient DNA was restricted to the seeds with a Brassica-type structure and deployed a variant of multiplexed tandem PCR. The quality of diagnosis strongly depended on the molecular locus used. Nevertheless, many seeds were diagnosed down to species level, in concordance with their morphological identification, using one primer set from the core barcode site (matK). The number of specimens found in the Renaissance herbaria was not high; Brassica nigra, which is of great ethnobotanical importance, was the most common taxon. Thus, the combined use of independent means of species identification is particularly important when studying the early use of closely related crops, such as Brassicaceae.