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13 pages, 254 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Risk, Uncertainty, and Resiliency in the Face of Ancient Climate Change: The Case for Legumes

by Jacob C. Damm

Heritage 2025, 8(7), 252; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8070252 - 26 Jun 2025

Viewed by 914

Continuing improvements in our understanding of ancient climate change renders it necessary to expand our toolkit for exploring human responses to climatic shifts. Currently, archaeological methods for exploring the resilience of ancient human agricultural systems—in addition to strategies for managing risk and/or uncertainty—are frustratingly limited in comparison to the rich ethnographic record of how humans have navigated climatic stressors. This article proposes that legumes might provide a new, albeit woefully understudied, vector for potential analyses, especially given their central role in traditional agricultural systems as a buffer against environmental stress. The peculiar agronomic character of legumes, especially among the widely cultivated varieties that are toxic in their unrefined state, could allow for robust hypotheses about agricultural strategies to be tested against our paleoclimate record. Importantly, these hypotheses could be tested against a wide variety of models of human–plant and human–environment interaction, as they could be based on labor costs rather than assumptions of ancient cultural preference. Legumes, however, present particular difficulties as objects of analyses, and therefore some methodological cautions are in order. Consequently, instead of proposing and testing hypotheses, this article seeks instead to inspire future research in relation to our constantly improving data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Archaeology of Climate Change)

32 pages, 15746 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Archaeobotanical Study of Tell Khamîs (Syria)

by Javier Valera, Gonzalo Matilla-Seiquer, Concepción Obón and Diego Rivera

Heritage 2022, 5(3), 1687-1718; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5030088 - 15 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3442

Abstract

Tell Khamîs, an archaeological site of the Syrian region of Upper Jazeera, is 3 km east of the Euphrates and 31 km from Yarâblûs (ancient Karkemiš); archaeological excavations determined seven different levels (Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, Aramaic, Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, and Islamic). This study aims to identify plant remains recovered during the excavation of the site and to place them within the chronology of Tell Khamîs and in the context of the archaeobotanical evidence for the Upper Euphrates. A total of 88 sediment samples were collected, and seeds, recovered via flotation, were identified using optical and SEM microscopy. A total of 20,606 whole remains and 37,646 fragments belonging to 92 taxa and 35 plant families were identified. Seed lists were compared with those from other sites, and the results were analyzed using multivariate techniques. Barley is particularly noteworthy for the number of remains; this species was found in 49 different samples, notably, in a silo of about 4 m³ in volume. Middle Bronze Age and Assyrian levels are the richest in remains; the site presents a maximum of documented activity in the Middle Bronze Age period, and the most interesting taxa from a paleoenvironmental and cultural point of view are represented by one or a few seeds. Full article

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14 pages, 2643 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Northwest Native Plants: A Digital Space for Paleoethnobotanical Knowledges and Biocultural Heritage

by Molly Carney, Melanie Diedrich, John C. Blong, Jade d’Alpoim Guedes, Tiffany J. Fulkerson, Tiffany Kite, Katy Leonard-Doll, Joyce LeCompte-Mastenbrook, Mario Zimmermann and Shannon Tushingham

Heritage 2022, 5(1), 297-310; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5010016 - 26 Jan 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4808

Abstract

Biocultural heritage preservation relies on ethnobotanical knowledge and the paleoethnobotanical data used in (re)constructing histories of human–biota interactions. Biocultural heritage, defined as the knowledge and practices of Indigenous and local peoples and their biological relatives, is often guarded information, meant for specific audiences and withheld from other social circles. As such, these forms of heritage and knowledge must also be included in the ongoing data sovereignty discussions and movement. In this paper we share the process and design decisions behind creating an online database for ethnobotanical knowledge and associated paleoethnobotanical data, using a content management system designed to foreground Indigenous and local perspectives. Our main purpose is to suggest that the Mukurtu content management system, originally designed for physical items of cultural importance, be considered as a potential tool for digitizing and ethically circulating biocultural heritage, including paleoethnobotanical resources. With this database, we aim to create access to biocultural heritage and paleoethnobotanical considerations for a variety of audiences while also respecting the protected and sensitive natures of Indigenous and local knowledges. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Digital Heritage)

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16 pages, 2274 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dry or Wet? Evaluating the Initial Rice Cultivation Environment on the Korean Peninsula

by Shinya Shoda, Hiroo Nasu, Kohei Yamazaki, Natsuki Murakami, Geon-Ju Na, Sung-Mo Ahn and Minoru Yoneda

Agronomy 2021, 11(5), 929; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11050929 - 8 May 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 5478

Abstract

The origins and development of rice cultivation are one of the most important aspects in studying agricultural and socio-economic innovations, as well as environmental change, in East Asian prehistory. In particular, whether wet or dry rice cultivation was conducted is an important consideration of its impact on societies and the environment across different periods and places. In this study, carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of charred crop remains from archaeological sites dating from the Early Bronze Age (ca. 1.1 k BC) to the Proto-Three Kingdoms (ca. 0.4 k AD) was conducted to clarify: (1) if there were any shifts from dry to wet cultivation around 1500 years after rice adoption as previously hypothesized and (2) the difference in stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values between rice and dry fields crops excavated from the same archaeological context to understand the cultivation environment. The result show that stable isotope values of charred rice grains have not changed significantly for around 1500 years. Moreover, rice possessed higher nitrogen stable isotope values than dry crops across all periods. While other potential factors could have influenced the ¹⁵N-enrichment of soils and crops, the most reasonable explanation is bacteriologic denitrification in anaerobic paddy soil where the rice was grown. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Histories of Crops, between Niche Construction, Domestication and Diversification)

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