Plants to textiles: Local bast fiber textiles at Pre-Pottery Neolithic Çatalhöyük

Textiles from Neolithic Çatalhöyük are among the earliest and best-preserved woven plant artifacts from ancient Southwest Asia. Recent examinations of textiles from Çatalhöyük's East Mound middle habitation phase (6700–6500 cal. B. C.) provide surprising evidence that instead of being made from flax (linen, Linum usitatissimum), as previously thought, the fibers are from the inner bark of trees (tree bast), some samples identified as bast from locally growing oak (Quercus sp.). The present paper reports on a separate analysis of five woven textile and two cordage fragments, also from the middle habitation phase. Our aims were to identify their raw material origins, distinguish the thread-making technology present, and to situate them within the broader chaîne opératoire of thread and textile making in the prehistory of the region. We observed that the thread-making technology was based on an end-to-end splicing method, and while agreeing with the earlier published study, that tree bast, not flax, was the source of the fiber, our results further suggest that elm (Ulmus sp.) and willow/poplar (Salicaceae) were also among the bast raw materials used in textile manufacture at the site. From these results we can infer that the textile makers possessed complex understandings of the biology, physiology, and seasonality of local wild tree genera throughout the surrounding environment

A methodological approach to the study of archaeological cereal meals: a case study at Çatalhöyük East (Turkey)

This paper presents an integrated methodology for the analysis of archaeological remains of cereal meals, based on scanning electronic microscopic analyses of microstructures of charred food fragments from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Turkey). The remains of cereal foods as ‘bread-like’ or ‘porridge-like’ small charred lumps of various amalgamated plant materials are frequently recovered from Neolithic and later archaeological sites in southwest Asia and Europe. Cereal food remains have recently attracted interest because the identification of their plant contents, the forms of food that they represent and the methods used in their creation can provide unique information about ancient culinary traditions and routine food processing, preparation and cooking techniques. Here, we focus on three methodological aspects: (1) the analysis of their composition; (2) the analysis of their microstructure to determine preparation and cooking processes; (3) the comparison with experimental reference materials. Preliminary results are presented on the botanical composition and cooking processes represented by the charred cereal preparations found at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Turkey), for example cereals processed into bread, dough and/or porridge

After the harvest: investigating the role of food processing in past human societies,

Plant processing provides an essential framework for archaeobotanical interpretation since practices of processing lie between the ancient acquisition of plants and the preserved remains of archaeology. Crop-processing stages have received much attention as they contribute towards the interpretation of plants recovered from archaeological sites, linking them to routine human activities that generated these plant remains. Yet, there are many other important aspects of the human past that can be explored through food processing studies that are much less often investigated, e.g. how culinary practices may have influenced resource selection, plant domestication and human diet, health, evolution and cultural identity. Therefore, this special issue of AAS on “Food Processing Studies in Archaeobotany and Ethnobotany” brings together recent pioneering methodological and interpretive archaeobotanical approaches to the study of ancient food processing. This new research, which involves archaeobotany, ethnoarchaeology, ethnobotany and experimental methods, encompasses investigations into dietary choice, cultural traditions and cultural change as well as studies of the functional properties (i.e. performance characteristics) of edible plants, and the visibility as well as dietary benefits and consequences of different food processing methods.Fil: Capparelli, Aylen. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Arqueología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Valamoti, Soultana Maria. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; GreciaFil: Wollstonecroft, Michèle M.. No especifíca

Pre-agricultural plant management in the uplands of the central Zagros: the archaeobotanical evidence from Sheikh-e Abad

Prior to the emergence of agriculture in southwest Asia, sedentarising human communities were experimenting with a diverse range of wild plant species over a prolonged period. In some cases, this involved the cultivation of species that would go on to be domesticated and form the foundation of future agricultural economies. However, many forms of plant use did not follow this trajectory, and in multiple places farming was only taken up later as an established ‘package’. In this paper, we present new archaeobotanical evidence from the Early Neolithic site of Sheikh-e Abad in the central Zagros of western Iran. Sheikh-e Abad is unique in being the only settlement known to date within southwest Asia that lies at an altitude above 1000m and which has occupation spanning the agricultural transition. Thus, it provides a rare opportunity to examine pre-agricultural plant management strategies in an upland zone. Our analyses of the plant remains from Sheikh-e Abad suggest that from its earliest occupation inhabitants were unconsciously ‘auditioning’ a suite of locally available wild grasses which ultimately were never domesticated. We discuss the possible reasons for this from a socio-ecological perspective, considering both the biology and ecology of the plant species in question, as well as the ways in which they were potentially managed

Civilisation and Human Niche Construction

This short paper introduces the special section "Civilisation and the Construction of the Human Niche", organised by the ‘Domestication, Niche Construction and the Anthropocene’ research network at the UCL Institute of Archaeology