tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75069919712078431222012-02-03T15:02:03.188ZA quick tally of new publications in archaeobotany, often with some first impressions. Also some assessments of recent conferences, web-sites or other sources. Opinions and views on the evolution and history of crops.Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.comBlogger831100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-48146740696025733812012-02-02T11:58:00.000Z2012-02-02T11:58:27.065Z

Next year (2013) sees the next International Workgroup in Palaeoethnobotany conference go to Thessaloniki Greece. Together with the overall conference organizer I am proposing a session on the role of wild foods in the Neolithic and what was special about it. This will be circulated through the regular conference channels, but to start a precis is here. The role wild foods amongst early farmers

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-16992130541268693362012-01-29T20:24:00.000Z2012-01-29T20:24:49.975Z

The special issue of Rice arising from the Cornell rice, genetics and linguistics meeting is now complete and fully paginated. I have blogged several of the papers earlier (listed below).  Those papers in the issue are well summarized in the editorial: "In this issue, 12 articles and 1 of the symposium discussants’ commentaries have been included. The first four (by Fuller, Bellwood, d’

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-21523845554384286012012-01-21T15:47:00.000Z2012-01-21T15:47:17.080Z

The publication of the 6th African Archaeobotany conference volume, with a december 2011 date, has been announced: Windows on the African Past. Current Approaches to African Archaeobotany, edited by Ahmed Fahmy, Catherine D'Andrea, Stefanie Kahlheber. Published by AfricaMagna. An Embarrassment for me, as the previous African archaeobotany conference held in London is still not published. Ooops.

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-62985609680115766052012-01-20T14:26:00.000Z2012-01-20T14:26:30.600Z

How does one keep tabs on the health of a discipline? Having just discovered google's NGRAMs tool, an obvious game to play to to plug in ones favorite words, or words for what we do, and see how they may as a percentage of published words (or the words in the massive google books archive) over time. How does archaeobotany do? Although flotation started in the 1960s, a recurrent name for the

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-36966261054087239602012-01-19T14:57:00.001Z2012-01-19T14:58:43.466Z

Neumann et al. in a new Quaternary International article "First farmers in the Central African rainforest: A view from southern Cameroon", report a combination of archaeobotanical, apynological and historical linguistic evidence for the nature of early Bantu economies on the northwestern rainforest along margins of central Africa in the First Millennium BC. This includes updated and important

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-24107905636616908792012-01-19T14:56:00.001Z2012-01-19T14:58:24.490Z

Bananas are an intriguing fruit. Quick growing, and tall, tropical herbs, rather than real trees, known pretty much everywhere today from the most temperate climes, as a typical and inexpensive table fruit, while in other places they serve as starchy staple alongside or even instead of tubers or cereals (and as the base for beer-brewing). Because most cultivated bananas are seedless hybrids

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-4578020259615382622012-01-18T11:04:00.001Z2012-01-18T11:40:47.224Z

Just a short not to highlight the publication of a special issue of Quaternary International (volume 249) on human occupation of tropical rainforests, on the theme of how rainforests are themselves artefacts, or "cultural landscapes", to quote from the editorial by Barton, Denham, Neumann and Arroyo-Kalin the papers show "several commonalities can be elicited that enabled hunter-foragers to

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-16958267227063874322012-01-18T10:48:00.002Z2012-01-18T11:33:47.600Z

Two additional paper on rice/cereal agriculture spread and historical linguistics have been published on-line. I recall both from their presentations at Cornell in September as being inciteful and informative: one by David Bradley collects the vocabularies of various cereal crops, always including rice, but also millets and buckwheat in various Tibeto-Burman languages. He concludes that for

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-74195851649746053422012-01-16T13:18:00.001Z2012-01-16T13:57:48.964Z

I am still trying to see through my Holiday period intention of flagging some of the archaeobotanical highlights of 2011. Africa, as a continent, remains one of the archaeobotanically least known and so it worth noting a number of contributions over the past year. One of the best itegrated studies (from anywhere, not just Africa) of wood charcoal alongside seeds, pollen and other lines of

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-57351144074935622292012-01-13T18:05:00.003Z2012-01-16T13:49:51.534Z

More papers from the Cornell meeting on rice, linguistics and cultural spread continue to come out on-line. This includes my own attempt ("Pathways to Asian Civilizations") to integrate historical linguistics hypotheses, current archaeobotany and recent genetics (including some considerations of issues blogged a few weeks ago). Perhaps more importantly it includes a updated  assessment of the

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-71163920227800218462012-01-11T16:40:00.002Z2012-01-16T13:21:26.963Z

I am ever the fan of the obscure crop, the "lost crop", or the highly local. I have drawn attention previously to the forgotten oil-millet of Taiwan, and tef-- which is obscure to those less familiar with Ethiopian agriculture-- a couple of years ago. I thought it might be interesting as part of a end of 2011 review, to compile some of the more obscure crops that got archaeobotanical attention in

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-48779090906181653642011-12-30T18:47:00.000Z2011-12-30T18:47:25.825Z

Although it is not, strickly speaking, archaeobotany I am interested to note a recent palaeobotanical study on Olduvai Gorge, which provides a new additional line of evidence on the environmental mosaic in which early hominins (Australopithecus etc.) lived published on-line for Quaternery International by Marion Bamford. Perhaps no surprise that it points to a dry savanna type environment with

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-33686654065977045262011-12-30T17:26:00.001Z2011-12-30T17:35:11.337Z

Just a few links I have been coming across to some of the old classics on Indian forestry, especially during the 19th century. More and more primary material is coming on-line! My own version of how this fits together with a broader history of plant ecology and vegetation classification can be found as Chapter 2 in Asouti & Fuller Trees and Woodlands in South India (2008 US edition; 2010 Indian

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-10588722767620475932011-12-21T03:46:00.002Z2012-01-11T15:49:45.304Z

The literature has been and remains split on singular or multiple origins for rice. The discussion of whether or not all Asian rice can be traced to a single domestication event and a single cultural origin of cultivation continues, and there have been major arguments in favour of it this past year including the high profile genetic modelling paper by Molina et al published in PNAS in May, and a

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-25240844837764357502011-12-19T10:30:00.000Z2011-12-19T10:30:24.170Z

2012 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the London Institute of Archaeology (which is now part of UCL), and semi-popular journal Archaeology International has just launched a bumper double in honour of this. This also marks a reformatting of the journal and launch of an on-line edition, which is fully open access. In addition back issues are now available digitally for free, the three

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-55855317449588729732011-12-09T17:41:00.002Z2012-01-16T15:21:01.101Z

The Near Eastern "fertile crescent" is the classic centre of origin for domesticated plants. Although when James Breasted coined the term (1906) he was thinking about the beginnings of agrarian civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The term become subsequently linked to Gordon Childe's notion (1935) of the "Neolithic Revolution" and with Vavilov's "centres of origin" idea, and the Fertile

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-43960478571511956192011-12-06T16:57:00.000Z2011-12-06T16:57:03.934Z

Some new publications highlight new research and new researchers working on the archaeobotany of parts of China and Southeast Asia. Three recent papers all from among a new generation of archaeobotanists report and review evidence for archaeological rice and foxtail millet (Setaria italica) in the parts of China and in Thailand. Recently published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences,

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-50436442530527229152011-12-06T16:24:00.000Z2011-12-06T16:24:50.302Z

A important paper on Soybean domestication (subtitle "Does size matter?") was published last month in PLOSone by G-A. Lee, Gary Crawford and colleagues. This reports details on the morphometrics of more than 900 archaeological soybeans across 22 sites in (northern) China, South Korea and Japan, including 7 directly dated by AMS. This provides the first really good archaeological dataset for

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-86587942045973085172011-11-18T13:09:00.000Z2011-11-18T13:09:57.014Z

The 7th international workshop for African Archaeobotany, and important small gathering every 3 years, now has a website for its next meeting, next summer in Vienna. Looking forward to it.

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-26306799374478611802011-11-18T12:54:00.000Z2011-11-18T12:54:26.487Z

Not sure how long this has been available but new to me is the on-line seed Atlas of Korean wild plants, which should be of use for in generally for archaeobotanical work in East Asia.

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-53825647307088553532011-10-28T12:16:00.000+01:002011-10-28T12:16:44.044+01:00

A new searchable database of l phytoliths images has been made available by the Barcelona lab GEPEG (Research Group for Palaeocological and Geoarchaeological Studies). Find it here: GEPEG phytolith database. I have not  had a chance to explore it in detail, but it will doubtless prove useful. It has about 185 images in it, so it by no means comprehensive, and it includes archaeological as well as

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-70387637858666893212011-10-10T00:19:00.001+01:002011-10-10T00:58:47.824+01:00

Recently published on-line is an highly significant, but rather unassuming paper, about variation in millet grains due to immaturity. Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute et al from the Cambridge archaeobotany lab report on "Experimental approaches to understanding variation in grain size in Panicum miliaceum" in Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.  One of the major conclusions is that immature grains are

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-42999991835942557222011-06-15T09:23:00.000+01:002011-06-15T09:23:39.793+01:00

A quick note on the publication of the updated rice archaeology database and a model effort based on it examining the spread of rice with an attempt to test its hypothesized contribution to rising global methane levels between 3000 BC and 1000 AD. This was a team effort involving students and post-docs with Early Rice Project (Kingwell-Banham; Castillo; Weisskop; Qin Ling) collaborators from

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-18943024443990096142011-06-09T06:43:00.000+01:002011-06-09T06:43:03.687+01:00

New genetics work on rice from a Japanese team indicates that the mutations SD-EQ1, which makes rice plants shorter, was strongly selected early on in the process of rice domestication, at least within the japonica sub-species, which is presumed to be that domesticated in the  Neolithic Yangtze. This article bu Matsuoka et al, published in PNAS, has been highlighted in Science magazine's on-line

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-13293182621058865192011-05-08T18:52:00.001+01:002011-05-08T18:52:23.106+01:00

The latest issue of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (Volume 3(1)), is a themed issue on food processing studies in archaeobotany and ethnobotany. It has a range of case studies I can recommends, geographically from Argentina to Germany to Greece to Japan, and in age from the Palaeolithic to the European Iron Age and the South American Inka. This is definitely an important for

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-30749469230749817322011-05-08T04:08:00.001+01:002011-05-08T04:08:59.295+01:00

As many know, in the last few years the Younger Dryas (or, Greenlanf Interstadial 1, if you prefer) has received quite a bit of attention as a potential mega-catastrophe, and impact of extraterrestrial asteroid, conveniently hitting the arctic ice sheet so as to not leave behind a crater, but nevertheless being alleged to have left behind nano-diamonds around the world, climate change and

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-1732047991513686222011-02-27T10:13:00.001Z2011-02-27T10:13:59.030Z

Here is a cross-link to an archaeobotanical blog from Giza, by friend and colleague Mary Anne Murray A bucket of water and a bag of dirt… « Ancient Egypt Research Associates

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-85699891543957681702010-08-11T15:37:00.001+01:002010-08-11T15:37:53.687+01:00

I just received a query about the native range of the  Indian Sacred Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), and whether it might have been introduced to India (e.g. by Indo-Europeans). Here are my thoughts An introduction to India is not out of the question, but seems fairly unlikely. True there are no hard archaeobotanical finds of Nelumbo [formerly often Nelumbium] but this species is surprisingly rare

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-17866861484240748592010-07-23T12:05:00.001+01:002010-07-23T12:08:50.227+01:00

A very interesting and important approach to mapping global vegetation but including the human activities has just come to my attention. It is the work of "Anthromes Project" of the Landscape Ecology laboratory at University of Maryand Geography Department, lead by Dr. Erle Ellis. Essential they are mapping landuse and vegetation together. Rather than traditional biome and vegetation mapping,

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-45351503113436707042010-07-22T09:30:00.000+01:002010-07-22T09:30:14.939+01:00

Both genetics and archaeobotany provide vantage points of reconstructing the early history of crops, where and how they originates, and how they spread. There has been a growing recognition in both fields that some of our previous conclusions were false truths, based on simplistic assumptions. There has been a small, but growing trend, for some true interdisciplinary synthesis, of

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-80787725544979256782010-07-22T09:12:00.000+01:002010-07-22T09:12:08.776+01:00

It is not everyday that archaeobotany received much 'mainstream' attention. But recently it did: Science on 2 July 2010 includes a profile of Dolores Piperno, one of our fields seniors figures in phytolith work and a pioneer in applying starch grains to the archaeology of the Neotropics.

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-53308024960636920292010-07-20T10:24:00.001+01:002010-07-20T10:29:40.719+01:00

A important study has recently come out in the journal Molecular Ecology, on  "Ecological divergence in the  face of gene flow in two closely related Oryza species (Oryza rufipogon and O. nivara" by Zheng and Ge. In it they have sequenced a few chloroplast and nuclear DNA loci (7 in total) across 26 populations of these two wild rices. Nivara and rufipogon represent two ends of a adaptive

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-78326412741233274472010-07-09T09:08:00.000+01:002010-07-09T09:08:29.380+01:00

A recent issue of the Chinese Science Bulletin contains an archaeobotanical paper from what appears to be a new archaeobotanical research group. An ChengBang et al. report evidence from survey archaeobotany in Qinan and Li counties, and as such follows in the path laid by flotation as part of field surveys published previously from the Yiluo Survey (Lee et al 2007) and the Ying Survey (Fuller and

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-11737230582484106702010-07-09T02:48:00.022+01:002010-07-23T12:26:09.941+01:00

The extensive set of direct dates, on the largest early assemblage of wheat and barley in China, provides important new evidence on the arrival of West Asian crops, and western stimulus, into China. Rowan Flad, Li Suicheng, Wu Xiaohung and Jimmy Zhao, have recently reported new archaeobotanical evidence and AMS dates from the Gansu corridor site of Donhuishan in short article in The Holocene, "

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-2743944590911735502010-07-08T11:10:00.010+01:002010-07-23T07:09:27.162+01:00

I received the following queries about rice, posted on the Indo-Eurasian discussion list. Which I will endeavour to answer here. This queries arise from a colleague having read my recent “consilience” review article on rice.- Does this new evidence (of proto-Indica and japonica entering fromChina via a precursor of the silk road) conclusively rule out the association of rice cultivation with a

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-61058974186968542852010-07-04T02:51:00.004+01:002010-07-04T10:46:48.952+01:00

Archaeological & Anthropological Sciences volume 2(2), is a special issue on the topic of early rice agriculture in Asia. It brings together recent statements about the state of the art of rice archaeology in China, Korea, Thailand, and to a lesser extent Japan and India. It has articles on genetics, including the first published ancient DNA extraction targeting the occluded cell nuclei trapped

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-48948461702341905482010-07-04T02:13:00.002+01:002010-07-04T10:48:00.002+01:00

A couple of enterprising Harvard students have built a facebook of seeds, or rather a kind of networking platform for uploading images of archaeobotanical specimens, or reference materials.  http://paleobot.org/So you can see what others have found, identified or unknown, and have another venue for looking for matches for your own mystery seeds. Potentially a very useful resource, that is once

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-23580433717796616362010-07-04T01:54:00.001+01:002010-07-04T02:53:27.584+01:00

Just a quick note, to record a link to a free, on-line book about plants in Europe (mainly Medieterranean and eastern Europe): Plants and Culture. Seeds of Cultural Heritage of Europe, edited by Jean-Paul Morel and Anna Maria Mercuri; the chapters or whole can be downloaded in PDF for free. Drawing on historical sources and archaeobotany, various chapters deal with vegetables, fruits, gardens and

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-31142326916785204842010-05-22T15:16:00.002+01:002010-05-22T15:24:11.235+01:00

We are now about two years into a new journal, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, which published archaeobotany as well as a broad swathe of other scientific approaches and applications in archaeology. It about almost two years since the initial editorial board was signed up, and the first articles were published in early 2009. Our 6th issue is in production now for June, and will be a

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-53489001976665678412010-05-22T11:38:00.000+01:002010-05-22T11:38:17.063+01:00

More evidence from the phytolith research group at the Chinese Institute of Geology in Beijing indicates that rice dispersal rapidly northwards from its presumed Yangzte origins into the temperate Yellow River Basin. Zhang et al (2010) report in a recent BOREAS article. phytolith sequences collected from scraped archaeological sections at Quanhu, Yangguanzhai and Anban, all Yangshao sites in the

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-1721233167226745552010-05-15T22:14:00.001+01:002010-05-22T10:47:06.766+01:00

I must draw attention to new blog endeavour. This time a joint project, with an active and exciting network of scholars and research students working on different aspects of the Indian ocean and the inter-regional links between African, Arabia, India and beyond. The Ancient Indian Ocean Corridors blog, provide a forum for news and discussion of new research relevant to both the Palaeolithic and

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-53134036728734102742009-12-22T11:41:00.001Z2010-07-22T18:34:36.571+01:00

I still seem to be playing blog catch-up, but I had to record something from a few months ago, which should be forcing us to think about the prehistory of barley in a whole new way. .. Palmer et al. of the Warwick molecular archaeobotany lab group of Robin Allaby published a major paper on plant ancient DNA in PLoSone this summer, "Archaeogenetic Evidence of Ancient Nubian Barley Evolution from

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-5971755050178643672009-12-18T18:25:00.007Z2010-07-04T02:18:14.061+01:00

The spread of agriculture to Egypt presents a number of contrasts from that in Europe of east of the Fertile Crescent. For one thing it seems to be long delayed, with our conventional dates for the earliest cereal agriculture in Egypt, such as in the Fayum at 5000-4500 BC-- by contrast cereal agriculture is established in Greece and Pakistan by 7000 BC. What is more Near Eastern animal

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-31927354608032302442009-11-04T01:11:00.006Z2010-05-22T15:24:35.167+01:00

In the Oct. 2009 issue of Theoretical and Applied Genetics, a large Chinese research group (Zhang et al.) looked Genetics structure among Chinese rice landraces, with over 3000 Chinese rice populations. They find clear population structure, not just between indica and japonica as expected, but also within each of these. Interesting they report that the structure in indica seems to relate to

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-92204571903921764502009-11-04T00:48:00.002Z2009-11-04T01:10:47.433Z

Although it is now a couple of months old, the paper by Kovach et al. (2009) in PNAS in August on the "Origin and Evolution of Fragrance in Rice" is an important contribution on the cultural history of rice. It is a clear example of selection by cultural preferences for rice that cooks a certain way, in this case with sweet or 'jasmine' aroma. Clearly many people from many cultural traditions

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-21186146898522702142009-11-03T23:26:00.003Z2009-11-04T00:12:04.462Z

This blog returns, with a start, at the news that Claude Levi-Strauss died today. Startling because I hadn't even realized he was still alive! Although he probably hasn't influenced too many archaeobotanists, he certainly changed the way we think anthropologically about food, what is classed as edible, defined as cooked or rotten and how we refract much of what we mean to be cultural through a

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-80655861036890624092009-08-25T17:21:00.000+01:002009-08-25T17:22:40.340+01:00

In Last week's Science the journalist Andrew Lawler, published an extended series of News Focus articles on Chinese civilization. The central piece focuses on the origins of civilization, highlighting for example the impressive urban settlement of Liangzhu (a kind of walled Neolithic Venice, many centuries before the Shang Dynasty) which ought to be better known to world archaeology than it is. (

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-3676393125319800012009-08-25T16:17:00.003+01:002009-08-25T16:28:26.578+01:00

Shan et al. (2009) in Theoretical & Applied genetics report mapping of the gene spd6 which in wild O. rufipogon appeasr to reduced panicle size, grain number and grain size. This is likely to be yet another important gene that selection of early farming acted upon to increase yields (and grain sizes), along side genes such as qsw5, sw5, and gs3 that have been reported in recent years to affect

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-48859524290792074072009-08-21T16:25:00.004+01:002009-08-21T16:35:29.221+01:00

A new article in the latest Azania (in its new format), reports on the excavations at Tadmakka, in northeast Mali, carried out by Sam Nixon in recent years. These excavations of about 5 meters of stratigraphy produced a wide range of evidence for trans-Saharan trade between ca. 750 and 1400 AD, with a very significant cultural change, interpreted as 'Tuaregization' (a more Nomadic turn) from

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-78932557442883632012009-08-13T13:09:00.007+01:002009-08-13T15:58:12.326+01:00

A couple of recent papers of the UC Davis crops sciences group, continue the research tradition of Paul Gepts in providing further refinements in out undrerstanding of Phaeseolus vulgaris domestications, especially in terms of locating these two domestications and identifying closed related wild popualations.Kwak and Gepts published in Theoretical & Applied Genetics 118 [March 2009] an open

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-54013703834944477052009-08-13T12:55:00.005+01:002009-08-14T00:56:47.471+01:00

A recent review article by Sonnante, Hammer and Pignone (2009) " From the cradle of agriculture a handful of lentils: History of domestication" in the rather obscure Rendiconti Lincei of April reviews the archaeology and genetics of Lentil domestication. It provides a useful overview, including a wide range of neutral genetic evidence that confers with the orthodoxy (e.g. of Zohary and Hopf) of a

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-26027196312985267092009-08-06T02:03:00.000+01:002009-08-06T02:04:37.730+01:00

Published in PNAS last week was another major genetic study rice genetic diveristy, phylogenetics and genome structure. The study lead of Ken McNally at IRRI, entitled "Genomewide SNP variation reveals relationships among landraces and modern varieties of rice" once again confirmed the wide divergence between indica and japonica, as well as the rather distinct and intermediate position of the aus

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-83907590105403395022009-08-05T23:59:00.011+01:002011-12-30T19:02:32.747Z

I have received a recent query about early cotton in Nubia and South Asia, vis-a-vis the early occurrence of apparent cotton fibres in plaster from Dhuweila in Jordan (published by Betts et al 1994, J. Archaeological Science). This came in response to discussion of the find in the recent review I co-wrote with Nicole Boivin on the Holocene prehistory of Arabia (including several discussions of

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-73975201951267458742009-08-03T11:57:00.010+01:002009-08-03T17:14:25.384+01:00

Yesterday, Gordon Hillman had some surprise visitors, Andy Fairbairn and Ehud Wiess (and I tagged along), who presented him with a feitschrift in his honour, published last week by Oxbow Books, Several years in writing, editing, and production the volume came as pleasant surprise to Gordon.Gordon is pcitured here with the Feitschrift in his honour and the two editors, his former students Andy

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-81685501196515164452009-08-01T22:32:00.002+01:002009-08-03T17:18:19.544+01:00

The latest publication from the Petraglia & Korisettar palaeolithic research team, working in South India, was published last week in PNAS—Population increase and environmental deterioration correspond with microlithic innovations in South Asia ca. 35,000 years ago. This study dovetails nicely with recent simulation modelling effort of some UCL colleagues (Adam Powell, Mark Thomas, and Stephen

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-18920214056439599062009-07-31T00:15:00.010+01:002012-01-18T12:33:57.455Z

Just published is a special issue of the on-line, open access journal Ethnobotany Research and Applications, devoted to the "History of Banana Domestication". For those unfamiliar with the journal, it is worth watching, as it publishes a wide range of ethnobotanical papers, including several that have been relevant to studying crop origins and traditions of use. The journal is free, after one

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-82186519441129434672009-06-30T10:47:00.007+01:002009-07-31T00:34:34.365+01:00

A few notes on three recent additions to the library of publications of rice genetics.1. Yamamoto et al (from Tusukuba) have publiished a review "Towards the Understanding of Complex Traits in Rice: Substantially or Superficially?" in DNA Research. This seems to be aimed at breeders and the potential of marker-assisted breeding, but it contains a useful compilation on a good range of QTLs for

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-51724455440626744262009-06-29T09:29:00.007+01:002009-07-31T01:16:38.435+01:00

Just a quick note of record of a new edited volume Interactions between Hunter-Gatherers and Farmers: from Prehistory to Present, edited by Ikeya, Ogawa and Mitchaell, was recently published in the series Senri Ethnological Studies by the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka [at the time blogging, this was not yet listed on their website]. The book is entirely in English, ands arises from a

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-4486268832980291692009-06-29T02:52:00.009+01:002009-06-29T09:52:09.938+01:00

In the latest Norwegian Archaeological Review Hafsaas-Tsakos argues for seeing archaeological Kerma, what the Middle Kingdom Egyptians referred to as Kush, as shifting from a 'periphery' to a 'centre' in the world system at that time. (This article is not a particularly botanical one, but Nubia is always close to my heart, so how can I pass up a note on it.... for a botanical side to this note,

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-14944318814291437002009-06-25T18:01:00.001+01:002009-06-25T18:50:50.878+01:00

Critical comments on the archaeobotany of Lahuradewa. The Pragdhara volume 18 (for 2008) arrived in London in the first week of June. It constitutes a special issue on the Neolithic and agricultural origins, with various reviews on other parts of the world (some I was involved in writing), and for various parts of South Asia. Perhaps the centrepiece of the issue is the latest report on

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-28624748128525495302009-06-25T09:10:00.001+01:002009-06-25T09:14:34.613+01:00

Plant Physiology for January includes a short, useful review on the genetics of foxtail millet, by Doust, Kellogg, Devos and Bennetzen. From this we learn that work is underway to prepare a full genome sequence for Setaria. It usefully provides an bibliography on the phylogenetc and genetic diversity studies in Setaria italica and viridis. Most of these have concluded that Setaria italica is

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-59379033327567255462009-06-25T06:30:00.004+01:002009-08-03T17:15:00.433+01:00

Domestication seems as hot a topic as ever, everyone is writing review papers on domestication, especially from a genetics perpsective. Often with varying degrees of ignoring, or sometimes misconveying the archaeological contribution. The paper by Brown et al in TREE late last year is a nice example of the integration of genetics and archaeology, with a focus on the Near East; there was also my

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-47811596159407941742009-06-25T02:20:00.000+01:002009-06-25T09:27:39.228+01:00

These have been a busy few months for the archaeobotany of domestication, or at least those keeping up with reading new publications. (The hard work producing the data was no doubt also busily spread out over the past few years). Since December we have seen new data on early foods in Peru, Maize in Mexico, North American crops, new thoughts on the wild food use at the start of Near Eastern

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-81367487415864800452009-06-24T05:46:00.000+01:002009-06-24T06:03:33.836+01:00

Pre-domestication granaries in Jordan: Kuijt & Finlayson (2009) in PNAS report preserved archaeological structures for granaries—round buildings which would have had raised wooden floors and lifespans of ca. 50 years. (This has also been reported by Michael Balter on the ScienceNOW blog.) They suggest these structures might have contained morphologically wild barley. It is a pity the

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-19866085502541367072009-06-21T09:20:00.000+01:002009-06-21T09:37:36.574+01:00

An article in the latest Annals of Botany, by John Mercader et al., presents results from a study of phytoliths from modern vegetation in the forests near Lake Nisiala in Mozambique. This is an important baseline and background study, which should contribute to the potential application of phytolith analysis in archaeology and palaeoenvironmental studies in East Africa. Perhaps most importantly

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-74127495585498318602009-06-19T13:55:00.000+01:002009-06-19T13:58:14.692+01:00

This is just to mirror the newlu advertised post-doc position at UCL, for candidates who are (or will be) qualified at doctoral level with expertise in the relevant research areas, to join our project 'The Identification of Arable Rice Systems in Prehistory'. The project is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the appointment is for the period 1 September 2009 to 31

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-45720368118926200852009-05-15T16:30:00.001+01:002011-12-06T22:28:04.906Z

Question: so what is the world's most obscure crop? Browntop millet (Brachiaria ramosa), now very relict, but clearly important as a millet in Neolithic South India is normally one of my favorite candidates, or perhaps one of the minor Digitaria domesticates of West Africa or Assam. The poetically named sumpweed, Iva annua, now extinct from cultivation is another good candidate, although it is

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-79698221613688706512009-05-14T03:35:00.001+01:002009-08-14T16:33:46.418+01:00

Jiang, Hong-en a young archaeobotanist at the Institute of Botany in Beijing, has been working on plants remains from dessciated tombs in the Tarim Basin in western China. He has been progressively expanding of list of archaeological plants from the region, often one species at a time, and the contribution has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science (for July2009, but now online).

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-76024969809036550592009-04-29T17:02:00.000+01:002009-04-29T17:05:56.299+01:00

In March, a small Wenner-Gren symposium on the origins of agriculture was held in Hacienda Temezon, Yucatan. A synoptic report by the organizers (T. Doug Price & Ofer Bar-Yosef), can now be found on the Wenner-Gren website. The publication is intended to come out in early 2010.

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-16273879309511256012009-04-27T15:19:00.000+01:002009-04-29T16:58:01.529+01:00

Published on-line last week in PNAS was a major new archaeobotanical study of the site of Cishan in central China, which utilized husk phytolith identification methods-- recently developed (published in PLoSone in February)-- and chemical differentiation between foxtail millet and broomcorn millet-- newly developed in this paper. Cishan is well-known site names, generally dated to sometime around

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-24197690311910602422009-04-27T02:14:00.002+01:002009-08-06T00:03:06.822+01:00

Gordon Hillman made a lasting impression on archaeobotany, both through his research and publications, and especially through his teaching. The study of hunter-gatherer archaeobotany (especially in Europe and the Near East), the origins of agriculture, and crop-processing (which he pioneered), would not be the same. In a few months a collection of papers in honour of him by former students,

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-3938656243396549162009-04-24T07:29:00.000+01:002009-04-27T15:18:05.152+01:00

Although I will sadly miss it myself, I want to note the link to the webpage of the upcomming International Workshop for Africa Archaeobotany 6 in Cairo this summer. I have finally updated the African archaeobotany links on the IWAA website, both to point to the new website, but also some resources that have come to my attention recently, including PROTA, which makes available the text of the all

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-66132857745802283442009-04-20T03:40:00.000+01:002009-04-21T09:38:13.808+01:00

Just to note that I have revised my account of early flotation in China, in an attempt to be more accurate, but remain brief. It appears that in addition to efforts by Gary Crawford and others involved in the early Chinese-American collaborative projects (which have sadly, still produced little in the way of published reports !), that the Chinese archaeologist Xiong Haitang observed flotation  

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-19491909101208587402009-04-16T16:54:00.001+01:002009-04-16T17:08:23.806+01:00

I remain a fan of the simple bucket, but I admit it probably requires more finesse to be relaible than a good flotation machine. (Machines are also a good sign of archaeological commitment to archaeobotany!) I have recently been supplied with photos of two portable flotation machine designs, one used at Dadiwan in China has been added to the base of the Chinese Flotation Machine webpage, and the

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-15914923279976617932009-04-15T07:10:00.001+01:002009-12-15T19:58:19.213Z

For those who like to generalize, it is often suggested that early farmers chose those grasses in their environment that had the largest seeds (e.g. in Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel), but if you want an exception, look to the Ethiopian "millet" tef [it is as much a "millet" as Finger millet, as both are Eragrostidae not Panicoids, the true "millet-grasses"]. It has by far the smallest grains of

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-75735579830697305252009-04-15T03:00:00.000+01:002009-04-27T03:06:04.886+01:00

On our recent publication on the rice spikelet bases from Tianluoshan, the following sources picked it up as a news item.From the China Daily Newspaper: "Fresh proof of China being the Cradle of Rice"The Science News feature by Michael Balter (from Science 20 March 2009): "Recipe for rice may have taken Millennia"The CBC (Canadian Radio) program, Quirks & Quarks, featured some discussion on rice

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-66054657336359440872009-04-15T02:49:00.000+01:002009-04-21T09:40:15.968+01:00

Xinyi Liu, Hunt and MK Jones have published an assessment of the (quite limited) data for early North Chinese millets in Antiquity, in which they argue for a shift away from the river valleys of early civilization to the 'hilly flanks' in the search for domestication. Probably right but seems quite a lag-time to be re-inspired by Braidwood!This Cambridge archaeobotany group have also provided a

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-2359978205146307122009-04-15T02:23:00.000+01:002009-04-16T15:56:55.975+01:00

In the latest issue of Quaternary Research (May 2009), Ngomanda, Katarina Neumann and colleagues report new pollen data from Cameroun which address the nature of vegetation changes between the end of the Second Millennium BC and the end of the First Millennium BC, a period when archaeological settlements are thin on the ground in sub-Saharan West Africa. Elsewhere Neumann and others(Breunig) have

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-69577054705755059412009-04-14T08:24:00.001+01:002009-09-15T23:27:12.553+01:00

Rio Balsas Maize, 6700 BC. New data pushes back maize earlier in Mexico than outside mexico and in the right part of Mexico, but notice that it is already domesticated, which means the beginnings of cultivation are earlier. This has a ScienceNOW post by Michael Balter, and the artilce by Piperno et al in PNAS (March 2009), "Starch grain and phytolith evidence for early ninth millennium B.P. maize

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-25353947271505058012009-04-14T06:50:00.000+01:002009-04-27T15:19:05.370+01:00

Kanmer. The joint excavations of the Kharakwal and the Osada Project of RIHN (Kyoto). Two preliminary reports have been published in the occassional papers series of the project (nos. 2, [2007], and 5, [2008])-- difficult to obtain publications. Both include some archaeobotanical data (lists of species present by samples) provided from analysis by Pokharia in Lucknos.Ojiyana. Anil Pokharia

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-16017023111490485272009-04-13T03:45:00.000+01:002009-04-14T11:30:10.143+01:00

Some recent articles on rice genetics that bear closer reading, vis-a-vis the evolution of the domestication syndrome and diversification as rice spread in prehistory.Hagiwara et al (2009) in Molecular Ecology, report on "Diversification in Flowering-time genes in wild and cultivated rice".Takahashi et al (2009) in PNAS, also report on Flowering time genes in riceIzawa et al. (2009) "What DNA

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-86393795561696183552009-04-13T03:16:00.000+01:002009-04-22T07:10:29.084+01:00

Last July, Bill Ruddiman and Chinese colleagues from the Institute of Geology published a artcile looking at the correlation between a compilation of archaeological evidence for rice in China and the divergence of global methane levels, towards higher levels, from the decrease that is expected based on previous interglacial patterns. This article appeared in Quaternary Science Reviews, and

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-31048672332210245042009-04-13T03:09:00.000+01:002009-04-14T06:30:21.515+01:00

The recent article in PNAS by Loukas Barton et al., on stable isotopes (of people, dogs and pigs) from the site of Dadiwan has provided new data and a new methodology for looking at the establishment of millet agriculture in China. This article attracted a nice news summary by Michael Balter on the ScienceNOw site. My first reactions below:It remains the case that the transition to agriculture in

Dorian Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com1