The study of crop origins has traditionally involved identifying geographic areas of high morphological diversity, sampling populations of wild progenitor species, and the archaeological retrieval of macroremains. Recent investigations have added identification of plant microremains (phytoliths, pollen, and starch grains), biochemical and molecular genetic approaches, and dating through (14)C a...

Archaeological and palaeoecological studies throughout the Americas have documented widespread landscape and environmental transformation during the pre-Columbian era. The highly dynamic Formative (or Neolithic) period in northern Chile (ca. 3700-1550 yr BP) brought about the local establishment of agriculture, introduction of new crops (maize, quinoa, manioc, beans, etc.) along with a major po...

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is one of the world's oldest cultivated cereals, with several lines of recent evidence indicating that it was grown in northern China from at least 10,000 cal bp. Additionally, a cluster of archaeobotanical records of P. miliaceum dated to at least 7000 cal bp exists in eastern Europe. These two centres of early records could either represent independent ...

Detailed studies of the long-term development of plant use strategies indicate that plant subsistence patterns have noticeably changed since the Upper Paleolithic, when humans underwent a transitional process from foraging to agriculture. This transition was best recorded in west Asia; however, information about how plant subsistence changed during this transition remains limited in China. This...

Communication routes are an important subject in the study of the human past. They allowed in-teractions between communities and the dispersal of goods and ideas. Their study, therefore, can shed light on the way in which communities inhabited the landscape, related to each other and were affected by macro-regional trends. Many methods, such as archaeomorphological analysis and Least Cost Route...

The Prunus genus contains many of the most economically significant arboreal crops, cultivated globally, today. Despite economic significance these domesticated species, pre-cultivation ranges, processes domestication, and routes prehistoric dispersal for all species remain unresolved. Among European plums, even taxonomic classification has been heavily debated over past several decades. In thi...

Emmer wheat, Triticum dicoccon schrank (syn. T. dicoccum (schrank) schÜbl.), is one of the earliest domesticated crops, harboring a wide range of genetic diversity and agronomically valuable traits. The crop, however, is currently largely neglected. We provide a wealth of karyotypic information from a comprehensive collection of emmer wheat and related taxa. In addition to C-banding polymorphis...

The Virovitica Kiskorija South site was a Roman village. In this paper archaeological, archaeobotanical, and archaeo-zoological finds are presented and interpreted, then compared with similar sites and information available from ancient sources. The site was divided into complexes that made a whole. The finds within each complex are presented and compared to similar archaeological sites, as wel...

Archaeobotanical and genetic analysis of modern plant materials are drawing a complex scenario for the origins cereal agriculture in Levant. This paper presents an improved method study early farming harvesting systems based on texture gloss observed sickle blades through confocal microscopy. Using this method, we identify different activities (unripe/semi-ripe/ripe reaping reed grass cutting) ...