ARCHAEOBOTANICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON SAMPLES RECOVERED FROM DACIAN SETTLEMENTS LOCATED IN TRANSYLVANIAN AREA

This paper presents the results of the archaeobotanical investigation carried out on charred macroremains from several archaeological sites located in Transylvania area which provided valuable insights into the plant economy of Dacian settlements. According with our results, field crop production was based on cereals, legumes and fruits. The evidence shows that vegetal diet had a significant role in the nutrition of Dacian communities, which in turn were much influenced by the availability and abundance of plant resources but also of the climate conditions. We rely our hypothesis on archaeobotanical data recovered from seven Dacian settlement: Piatra Craivii, Căpȃlna, Cetea (Alba County) Augustin-Tipia Ormenișului (Brașov County) Șimleul Silvaniei - Cetate and Observator (Sălaj County) and most important on results gathered in several campaigns from Sarmizegetusa Regia (Hunedoara County). The evolution of human communities has been heavily influenced by the potential sources for life sustenance accessible in the area where they live.</p

Archaeobotanical results from the late bronze age hillfort Teleac (Alba County, Romania)

Th e article discusses the plant species found during the 2016 archaeological campaign inside the fortification of Teleac. Analysis of the macro remains recovered from archaeological deposits in Teleac helped to reconstruct the plant species cultivated by the Late Bronze Age inhabitants. The predominant cereal species in the samples was Panicum miliaceum (broomcorn/domestic millet) with 51 seeds, followed by Triticum monococcum (einkorn) with 27 seeds and Triticum spelta (spelt wheat) with 14 seeds. Also revealed were Triticum dicoccum (emmer) with 9 seeds and Secale sp. (rye) with 7 seeds. An overview of the entire Bronze Age, our focus shows that during this period the communities were engaged predominantly in agriculture, preserving their habits from the area of their origin. The results of specific analyses show that peasant farming was the mainstay of Bronze Age life

Ex Oriente seges: the arrival and establishment of broomcorn millet in Europe

Cultivation of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) was a widespread practice in later European prehistory. When and how this ‘crop from the East’ was introduced to the continent and spread across it has not been determined. So far, based on the relative chronology of millet finds and a small set of radiocarbon-dated caryopses, it has been suggested that millet did not arrive in Europe during the Neolithic and that this happened in the Mid-Late Bronze Age. It has not been clear why and how millet was integrated into the pre-existing crop spectrum and what effect this had on the crop husbandry routine. The economic and socio-cultural contexts of the adoption of millet have not been closely examined. The 'Millet Dating Programme' recently completed at Kiel University produced 100+ radiocarbon dates on charred grains of broomcorn millet recovered from Neolithic and Bronze Age layers of sites located in different parts of Europe. Collectively, the absolute dates suggest that millet reached most of SE, central and NW Europe in the period 15-13th century BC. Using these high-precision data, we can now build a link between the start of millet cultivation and the coeval changes in subsistence economy potentially resulting from the adoption of the new crop. We present the results of this research project and discuss possible mechanisms by which millet was distributed, as well as the potential agro-ecological causes-andeffects of the establishment of millet cultivation in Europe

New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is not one of the founder crops domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but was domesticated in northeast China by 6000 bc. In Europe, millet was reported in Early Neolithic contexts formed by 6000 bc, but recent radiocarbon dating of a dozen 'early' grains cast doubt on these claims. Archaeobotanical evidence reveals that millet was common in Europe from the 2nd millennium bc, when major societal and economic transformations took place in the Bronze Age. We conducted an extensive programme of AMS-dating of charred broomcorn millet grains from 75 prehistoric sites in Europe. Our Bayesian model reveals that millet cultivation began in Europe at the earliest during the sixteenth century bc, and spread rapidly during the fifteenth/fourteenth centuries bc. Broomcorn millet succeeds in exceptionally wide range of growing conditions and completes its lifecycle in less than three summer months. Offering an additional harvest and thus surplus food/fodder, it likely was a transformative innovation in European prehistoric agriculture previously based mainly on (winter) cropping of wheat and barley. We provide a new, high-resolution chronological framework for this key agricultural development that likely contributed to far-reaching changes in lifestyle in late 2nd millennium bc Europe