Holocene environmental instability in the wetland north of the Tiber delta (Rome, Italy): sea-lake-man interactions

Combined analyses of pollen, seeds, woods, micro-charcoal and non-pollen palynomorphs from Stagno di Maccarese, an artificially dried out coastal basin north of the Tiber delta now occupied by the Fiumicino Airport (Rome, Italy), document marked vegetation and environmental changes during the last 8300 years. Between 8300 and 5400 cal. a BP dense mixed deciduous and evergreen forests surrounded a eutrophic freshwater basin. An abrupt change around 5400 cal. a BP marks the transition to a marshy environment, due to a lowering of the water table. An increase of cereals and micro-charcoals matches the presence of a nearby Eneolithic settlement. Between 5100 and 2900 cal. a BP there is a remarkable expansion of riparian trees, indicating an increase of the water level. Between 2900 and 2000 cal. a BP, a new development of marshlands points to a progressive lowering of the lake. After 2000 cal. a BP, during the Roman exploitation of the area, an expansion of arboreal vegetation is recorded, characterized by evergreen and deciduous oak-dominated forests, while an extensive chenopods marshland matches the presence of saltworks. On the whole, the Stagno di Maccarese area appears very unstable, due to changes in lake level, introgression of marine water, eutrophic phases, flood events, desiccations and openings of the forest vegetation

The introduction of Citrus in Italy with reference to the identification problem of seed remains

While some consensus exists about the roles of southwestern China and northeastern India in the origin and diversification of the genus Citrus, the scarcity of its archaeological remains, as well as some methodological limits in unequivocally identifying taxa, do not facilitate reconstruction of the tempo and mode of spread of the genus towards other areas, notably the Mediterranean. Recent discoveries of archaeobotanical macro-remains (seeds and fruits) and pollen records from some important Italian sites in the Vesuvius area and Rome can be used to shed new light on this history. However, due to their morphological variability and the changes derived from the preservation processes, Citrus seeds appear difficult to recognise. In this paper, we present criteria to facilitate their precise identification, based on the observation of the morphology of modern seeds, and most of all the seed-coat patterns. The reference material consisted of "archaic" varieties of C. medica L. (citron), C. × limon (L.) Burm. f. (lemon) and seeds of C. × aurantium L. (bitter or Seville orange), C. × aurantiifolia (Christm.) Swingle (lime) and C. reticulata Blanco (tangerine, mandarin orange). Considering the fact that the general morphology of seeds, especially when mineralised, can confuse the identification of Citrus with Maloideae types, we also add criteria for the recognition of Cydonia oblonga Mill. (quince), Malus domestica Borkh. (apple), Pyrus communis L. (pear), Sorbus aria (L.) Crantz (whitebeam) and S. domestica L. (service tree). The observation of the keels and cell patterns was mostly useful to identify new material from Pompeii and Rome dating from the 3rd/2nd century b.c. and the Augustan period around the beginning of the Common (Christian) Era as C. medica L. (citron) and C. cf. × limon (L.) Burm. f. (possible lemon). The classical Greek and Latin sources helped us to understand the use and status of citrus fruits in the ancient world and, in combination with all available archaeobotanical remains compiled in this paper, have allowed us to discuss the spread of Citrus from its regions of origin to the eastern Mediterranean and then within the Mediterranean. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Millets and Cereal Meals from the Early Iron Age Underwater Settlement of “Gran Carro” (Bolsena Lake, Central Italy)

Archeobotanical materials recovered from pottery vessels originating from the underwater archeological site of “Gran Carro”, located in Central Italy on the shore of Bolsena Lake, were analyzed to obtain new insight into the agricultural habits present in this Iron Age settlement. The archeobotanical study of cereal remains was combined with analytical data obtained from an amorphous organic residue using optical microscopy, SEM-EDS, ATR/FT-IR and Py-GC/MS. The cereal remains of emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), and foxtail millet (Setaria italica) were identified as the preferred crops used for food and/or fodder at the site. The presence of charred millets, which have been directly dated by AMS, confirms consumption at the site and adds to the little-known background of millet use in central Italy. The find of millets in a perilacustrine pile-dwelling during a period when the water level of the Bolsena Lake was several meters lower than at present, attesting to a general dry period, suggests that the cultivation of millets, complementing more productive crops of wheat and barley, may have been favored by the availability of a large seasonally dry coastal plain, characterized by poor and sandy soils unsuitable for more demanding cereals

Archaeological evidence for the dietary practices and lifestyle of 18th Century Lisbon, Portugal. Combined steroidal biomarker and microparticle analysis of the carbonized faecal remains

The study of the urban context in the contemporary center of Portugal’s capital city uncovered traces of daily lives that were abruptly interrupted and utterly transformed by the Great Lisbon Earthquake on the morning of 1 November 1755. Charred organic residue was recovered from a cylindrical vessel excavated from the storage area of the town house at the Rossio square. The archaeological sample was studied through a multi-analytical approach based on microstructural, elemental and biomolecular characterization by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FT-IR), variable pressure scanning electron microscopy coupled to energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (VP-SEM-EDS), and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The residue was identified as human faeces collected in the ceramic vessel for disposal, and further analysis provided additional information about diet and the living conditions in the 18th century

The Botanical Record of Archaeobotany Italian Network - BRAIN: a cooperative network, database and website

Con autorización de la revista para autores CSIC[EN] The BRAIN (Botanical Records of Archaeobotany Italian Network) database and network was developed by the cooperation of archaeobotanists working on Italian archaeological sites. Examples of recent research including pollen or other plant remains in analytical and synthetic papers are reported as an exemplar reference list. This paper retraces the main steps of the creation of BRAIN, from the scientific need for the first research cooperation to the website which has a free online access since 2015.Peer reviewe