tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75069919712078431222024-03-28T16:19:49.113+00:00The ArchaeobotanistSome thoughts on recent publications in archaeobotany and agricultural origins. Opinions and views on the evolution and history of crops. Memorials of archaeobotanists we have lost. The author's research has previously been supported by grants from the ERC and NERC.DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-87715058932661957302022-02-06T14:48:00.000+00:002022-02-06T14:48:33.548+00:00The drug before the calorie? Some hazy thinking on Cannabis domesticationMany have been excited this week about headlines claiming marijuana (Cannabis) was domestication in China 12,000 years (making it the first crop in East Asia). As the reputable journal Nature put it "pot farming first blossomed" in China 12,000 years ago. But was it so? How clear or otherwise in the evidence? Is it really farming? The study by Ren et al in Science Advances paper is important-- itDQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-2522262162279547652020-06-28T17:20:00.000+01:002020-06-28T17:20:15.429+01:00Chicken origins: closing in with new genomic evidence
wild Gallus gallus spadiceus
The past week saw the publication of a landmark genomic study on chickens (Wang et al 2020, Cell Research), which clarifies much about origins, and focuses some questions for further research. For a news summary see Lawler's Science piece.
It is transformative because it includes a substantial sample of genomes from across all of the wild
subspecies of Red DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-41468860864122969742020-06-28T16:17:00.002+01:002020-06-28T16:17:27.822+01:00Rice awn reduction: not a domestication trait
In a recent paper in Economic Botany, Svizzero, Ray and Chakraborty (2019) ask whether awn reduction is really part of the domestication syndrome of rice or instead a crop improvement trait. It is true that I once listed this as part of the domestication syndrome traits in cereals (Fuller 2007): awn/appendage reduction, but I don't think I really pressed for this to a be central part of DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-87385393010489632462020-06-21T11:45:00.001+01:002020-07-01T09:16:11.470+01:00Citrus diversity in Roman Naples: pollen evidence for tangerines
The early history of Citrus fruits in the Mediterranean has been an active area of discussion amongst archaeobotanists, historians and palynologists in recent years. It has been well-established that citrons (Citrus medica) and lemons (Citrus limon) were known. For one thing they appear distinctively in Roman art, and for another their seeds are well known from Pompeii (e.g. Celant and DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-8902368305501785992020-06-20T17:44:00.001+01:002020-06-20T17:44:22.600+01:00On the Anti-Neolithic of Cyprus
Cyprus is the first place that we know that crops and livestock were spread to by human action. This even took place before domestication. Morphologically wild wheat and barley, cattle, sheep and goat that appear wild. Cats that were presumably following mice that were stow-aways with grain stores on those early boats; early meaning ~9000 BC. But despite this very early start on theDQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-19224614901954649902020-06-20T17:08:00.002+01:002020-06-21T12:25:00.464+01:00Structured diversity in tea does not mean multiple domestications
Genetic population structure of tea.
When and where were tea domesticated? And how many times? This is a question I get asked sometimes, and a paper published a few years ago was just brought to my attention that claims to have genetic evidence for three separate domestications, by Meegahakumbura et al. (2016) in PLOSone. I disagree. The paper convinced me of quite the opposite. It DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-36750664231877252482020-01-17T14:40:00.001+00:002020-03-11T15:46:54.925+00:00In Memoriam Steven A. Weber
It is with profound sadness that I record the passing away earlier this week of Steve Weber (1954-2020), an archaeobotanist, a friend, a sometimes sparring partner (on issues archaeobotanical), a sometimes co-author, whose ideas and work greatly enriched my own. For most archaeobotanists, he is probably best known for his work on Harappan plant remains, from his book Plants and Harappan DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-25993510366656763382019-07-20T10:29:00.000+01:002019-07-20T10:29:32.071+01:00Panicum domestication and early sedentism in Northeast China
For the past decade the Xinglongwa culture of eastern Inner Mongolia (Liao River valley) has been regarded as a likely cultural context for the domestication of common millet (Panicum miliaceum), on the basis of significant quantities of Panicum grains associated with some of the many houses excavated at the site of Xinglonggou (see, e.g. Zhao 2011). Recently, new excavations by a DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-43808624638742691292019-07-13T04:07:00.005+01:002019-07-18T05:40:48.515+01:00In Memoriam, 'Leo' Aoi Hosoya (1967-2019)
It is with sadness that I report the passing of an archaeobotanical colleague and friend, Leo Aoi Hosoya, who passed on 10 July 2019. Our condolences go first to her family, her husband and daughter. Many archaeobotanists at the IWGP held in Lecce in June 2019 will recall her paper presented in absentia, that began with an amusing video message from Leo. Sadly her health did not DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-73528190772362762402019-05-16T10:23:00.000+01:002019-05-16T10:27:02.846+01:00Thai rice archaeobotanical study win Ben Cullen prize
A recent paper from the UCL Early Rice project has received the BenCullen prize from Antiquity for 2019 (jointly with other excellent papers). The paper, “Social responses to climate change in Iron Age north-east Thailand: new
archaeobotanical evidence” publishe last year, by a
co-authorship team lead by Cristina Castillo (UCL), together with Katie Miller
(MSc Environmental DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-83314317851905175782018-09-21T11:57:00.001+01:002018-09-21T12:07:03.182+01:00Pearl Millet genomics and domestication centre
Modern genomes have the potential to reveal alot about evolutionary history and past geography of a crop. Of course there are some limitation to the degree that it hard to account for extirpated past populations, such as the wild rice that used to grow in central China or the wild pearl millet that used to grow what is now the Sahara. A new study of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) by DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-10180913038589744562018-09-21T11:10:00.002+01:002018-09-21T11:12:55.254+01:00Ancient DNA in charred grains? More bad news.
No one can have missed the massive impact that ancient DNA
has been having on the history of human populations and those of several
domesticated animals. Bones, at least some of them, provide a nice venue for
the preservation of old genomes. Plants have featured much less in this story,
with estimates of 200 C) for sometime (many hours)-- does not do DNA any
favours. This who have worked on DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-76646819443163333402018-09-21T10:34:00.000+01:002018-09-21T10:34:17.318+01:00Improved methods for looking at plant remains in pots
I have previously highlighted the potential of ct-Scanning and synchrotron imaging to look inside archaeological seeds, or seeds inside archaeological pots. And wanted here to highlight the publication of a more detailed protocol for ct-scanning bits of pottery for looking at inclusions, recently published by Barron and Denham in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. We have, of course, DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-88187983234290302382018-07-03T16:23:00.001+01:002019-07-13T04:27:19.317+01:00In Memoriam, Gordon Hillman (1943-2018)
It’s with great sadness we bring you the news
that Gordon Hillman died on Sunday 1st July. He is survived by his daughter Thilaka,
and three Grandsons. Gordon Hillman was a pivotal figure in the development of
archaeobotany at the Institute of Archaeology, and through his research,
publication and teaching he had a major influence on the direction of the field
worldwide, especially with DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-54804010528083877112018-01-16T11:02:00.000+00:002019-07-13T04:27:41.107+01:00In Memoriam Alison Weisskopf (1960-2018)
Alison and Oryza nivara in
Orissa, Sept. 2010
Alison Weisskopf (1960-2018), passed away peacefully in
hospice in the presence of her immediate family on 11 January 2018. She was a
beloved colleagues at the Institute of Archaeology, a fixture in the
archaeobotany laboratory for many years and a leading figure in archaeological phytolith
research, respected globally. Her research legacy is DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-71332385496461588672018-01-16T06:32:00.002+00:002018-01-16T06:34:26.930+00:00Rice bulliform phytoiths and morphological change
In preparing for a recent Bangkok workshop on the archaeology of rice, I have collected some thoughts of the proposed methodology for tracking rice domestication using rice bulliform phytoliths.
Fan
shaped bulliform phytoliths form along the veins of rice leaves. Rice (genus Oryza) has a distinctive shape although
some fanlike bulliforms do occur in other grasses, but with different DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-20621014740597557382018-01-16T06:05:00.000+00:002018-01-16T06:05:04.143+00:00Rice husk phytoliths and morphological change
In preparing for a recent Bangkok workshop on the archaeology of rice, I have collected some thoughts of the proposed methodology for tracking rice domestication using rice husk phytoliths (the "double peaked" cells from lemma and palea).
The husks of rice are full of silica and
often all the cells of silicified. The rows of cells on the rice husk include
trapezoidal phytoliths the upper DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-3825512827253082212017-12-09T00:37:00.006+00:002017-12-09T00:44:31.953+00:00Buckwheat origins remain elusive
Harriet Hunt and colleagues have provided a new critical assessment of data and potential data on origins of the buckwheats (Fagopyrum esculentum and F. tartaricum) in a Vegetation History and Archaeobotany article. Buckwheat is an important carbohydrate crop at high elevations in Asia, as well as parts of Japan and Europe, but it has remained quite elusive archaeobotanically.
It is DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-19190659627861996442017-12-08T21:18:00.001+00:002017-12-08T21:18:08.088+00:00Neolithic wine drinkers in Georgia or wishful thinking
Strong inference I was always taught comes from thinking
through multiple working hypotheses and assessing which hypothesis is best
supported by available evidence and trying to falsify alternatives. It is
unfortunate if the quest for headlines and high profile publication gets in the
way of clear thinking and an scientific approach. Of course sometimes evidence and conclusions are only partly DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-60786293289705125652017-11-23T09:19:00.001+00:002017-11-23T09:19:52.058+00:00The earliest wheats of Ukraine (5400 BC)
The eastern areas of Europe and their transition to the steppe that lead to Central Asia remains one of the less well-studied regions archaeobotanically. The sparseness of reliable evidence has meant that the region is sometime discussed in terms of an alternative eastern source of crops from Europe, in addition to the main thrust from Anatolia through Greece and the Balkans, and it is DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-39956452319482463732017-11-23T01:16:00.003+00:002017-11-23T01:16:39.999+00:00The lost rice of South America
One of my pet interests is lost crops, or largely forgotten ones-- species that were important in the past which are either completely lost from cultivation today or very nearly so. They serve to remind us that the ethnographic present does not provide a full range of potential economic activities nor the full range of crops. They demonstrate that archaeobotanical evidence can provide importantDQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-7016042144132716172017-11-21T16:20:00.000+00:002017-11-21T16:20:08.780+00:00Using big machines to look at the finer aspects of seeds
This year has seen three studies on high resolution x-ray computed tomography applied to archaeobotany, one using ct-scanning to recovered chaff hidden in ceramics (see Finding Rice Domestication in Clay), and two using a synchrotron to peer inside seeds, including soybeans and horsegram.
This past summer, I published with colleague Charlene Murphy, a Scientific Reports article on DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-91915216993288323802017-10-29T21:23:00.000+00:002017-10-29T21:23:03.202+00:00Finding rice domestication in clay (new methods in archaeobotany)
One of the more exciting methodological developments in archaeobotany I have seen lately is the use of ct-scanning to look into chaff tempered ceramics and to extract in virtual terms the invisible plant remains therein. Aleese Baron, Tim Denham working with a range of colleagues have applied ct-scanning and computed tomography to produce images of rice chaff and rice spikelet bases from DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-56830390380178925692017-10-26T11:51:00.000+01:002017-10-26T15:00:38.364+01:00Earlier Sorghum in Sudan (2017)
A few years ago I posted a blog on Earlier sorghum in Sudan highlighting the work by Alemseged Beldados and Constatini on sherd impressions from Kasala from the early Second Millennium BC. At the time I raised the question as to whether or not these impressions were wild or domesticasted. At the time I bemoaned the lack of SEMs and attention to spikelet base remains. That blog post attractedDQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506991971207843122.post-88121006663474513572015-09-23T16:28:00.000+01:002019-07-13T04:28:09.105+01:00A tribute to Alice Berger, a research student lost too soon
A personal tribute from Alice’s PhD
supervisors at UCL
This week we learned the sad and
shocking news of Alice Berger’s passing. As Alice’s PhD supervisors at the
Institute of Archaeology, UCL, we extend our deepest sympathies to her family
and friends. Alice came to the Institute from the Department of Archaeology and
Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University. Her Masters thesis DQ Fullerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13131848893605866973noreply@blogger.com10