Continuous sedimentary lake records covering the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) are very rare in Europe. Here, we conducted additional palynological analyses to connect two separate radiocarbon-dated pollen sequences of Lago della Costa (AP2 and AP1) to one complete vegetation history record of the Euganean Hills (“Colli Euganei”, northern Italy) covering the past ca. 32,000 years...
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...
This paper presents a summary of the record of the cultivated plant macroremains from southern Italy during the early Middle Ages, with a focus on the recent discoveries of crop remains in Sicily. These have shed light on the introduction of new plants in the central Mediterranean region at ca. 500–1100 ce. Specifically, we are dealing with the first evidence of the adoption of...
While the impacts of modern farming and land use practices on climate and biodiversity since 1900 are well-studied in Western and Central Europe, less is known about the preceding transitional period of the 18th and 19th century. By combining information from both natural and historical archives, this study strives to understand the impacts of 18th century agrarian modernisation...
The Neolithic and Copper Age (CA) of Hungary (6000–2800 cal bc) represents a meticulous construction of settlement structure, material culture, arable farming and herding techniques with at least one, but likely several reappearing population movements that brought in innovations and possibly contributed to the societal changes in this period. The last couple of decades witnessed...
The way archaeobotanists name and quantify seed fragments is a determinant step not only in the interpretation of a given macrobotanical assemblage, but also in the degree of comparability across different sites. However, seed terminology and quantification have yet not been standardised among scholars but rely on the various geographical and laboratory traditions, as well as...
Some glacial relict (mosses) have survived from the Ice Age up to the present time in specific, long-lasting habitats. Mires are one of the most common ecosystems in which they are present. In this paper the past distribution of eight species of such peat-forming mosses in Poland in the past is discussed. The distribution and dates of previously published moss finds in Poland...
What turns an invention into an innovation? How, if at all, might we observe this process archaeologically? Loosely put, new varieties of plants or animals might be considered as inventions (whether from deliberate breeding or by chance), but ones that are only taken up by humans more systematically as innovations when certain social, demographic, economic and environmental...
The SW highlands of Ethiopia are a key component in the evolution of modern humans. Yet, palaeoecological studies, essential to understand past human-vegetation relationships, are almost inexistent in this region. In this paper, we present an anthracological study of the Sodicho rock shelter, located at 1,930 m a.s.l. in the SW Ethiopian Afromontane forest zone, reconstructing...
Pollen diagrams covering the Bronze Age to Roman period from northeast Northumberland are scarce. We present a 14C-dated pollen record from a peat-filled forest hollow in Chillingham Wild Cattle Park, northeast Northumberland, that spans the Iron Age. For the first time for this part of Northumberland, fungal spores are also analysed to investigate whether clearances took place...
Fire, an important element of human land use strategies, was part of many early industrial activities but also of burning incidents that significantly impacted settlement structures and development. The spatial proximity of the historically well-documented medieval town and sediment archive deposited in its central lake (Stadtsee) was taken to investigate the interplay of fire...
The Phoenician settlement of La Fonteta (Alicante, Spain) was founded in the late 8th cent bc at the mouth of the Río Segura. It has provided one of the most complete archaeobotanical records of all Phoenician Mediterranean sites which points to an agricultural system based on cultivating cereals, pulses and a wide variety of fruits such as grape, fig and pomegranate. These crops...
Environmental conditions for trees that established in central Fennoscandia shortly after the final retreat of the Weichselian ice sheet remain poorly understood. In this study we examine tree rings of five well-preserved Pinus sylvestris (Scots pines) that grew in the area in front of the retreating ice sheet in northern Sweden. They became buried in flood sediments deposited by...
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...
The 1st millennium ce in the Iberian peninsula was characterized by a continuous exchange of people, goods, food, technology, etc. which led to the transformation of agriculture and the introduction of new crops there. This paper presents the archaeobotanical evidence of the plants that were introduced there during the Roman and medieval periods. Cereals such as Secale cereale...
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...
By-products of metal corrosion, when coming into contact with organic matter, have the capacity to preserve it from decay. A pilot study was conducted aiming to explore the potential and limitations of plant remains preserved in by-products of metal corrosion for archaeobotanical research. The organic remains considered come from the surface/immediate proximity of the metal...
This review paper analyses the first steps of the spread of domestic plants into Sicily. Despite being the biggest island of the Mediterranean and its central position, the process of arrival and diffusion of crops in Sicily is still poorly understood. Starting from the limited but significant record from Grotta dell’Uzzo, the plant macrofossil data are presented and discussed...
Triticum timopheevii sensu lato (‘new glume wheat’, NGW) was first recognised as a distinct prehistoric cereal crop through work on archaeobotanical finds from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in northern Greece. This was later followed by its identification in archaeobotanical assemblages from other parts of Europe. This paper provides an overview of the currently known...