Identifying the chaîne opératoire of club-rush (Bolboschoenus glaucus (Lam.) S.G.Sm) tuber exploitation during the Early Natufian in the Black Desert (northeastern Jordan)

Club-rush (Bolboschoenus spp. (Asch.) Palla) is one of the most common edible wild plant taxa found at Epipaleolithic and Neolithic sites in southwest Asia. At Early Natufian site Shubayqa 1 (Black Desert, Jordan) thousands club-rush rhizome-tuber remains hundreds fragments prepared meals were found. The evidence indicated that underground storage organs this recurrently used as a source food 14,600 years ago. To determine how communities gathered, processed transformed tubers into food, we designed an interdisciplinary study combined experimental archaeology, archaeobotany, ground chipped stone tool analyses. We conducted more than 50 specific experiments over three years, based on materials produced inferred 1) best season for collection region was spring-summer time; 2) primary method to harvest would have been uprooting; 3) efficient approaches obtain perfectly peeled clean rhizome-tubers could entailed drying, roasting gentle grinding tubers. Overall, our work provides important information reconstruct chaîne opératoire tuber exploitation past. data modern reference datasets allow us interpret archaeological material 1, start identifying some activities Black Desert undertook relation particular food.