Book Review

Ancient Plants and People: Contemporary Trends in Archaeobotany

Edited by Marco Madella, Carla Lancelotti, and Manon Savard. 2014. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 316 pp. $70.00. ISBN 978-0-8165-2710-6.

Reviewed by Diana Rocío Carvajal-Contreras

Reviewer address: Facultad de Estudios de Patrimonio Cultural, Carrera de Arqueología, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Calle 10ª #3-15 este, Bogotá, Colombia. Email: [email protected]

Received: July 3, 2015 Volume: 6(1):203-207 Published: December 8, 2015 © 2015 Society of Ethnobiology

Since the 19th Century, there has been a long tradition He designs a mathematical method to compare of analyses and interpretation of plant remains from samples from multiple populations using seed archaeological contexts. Many of those analyses have densities and also attempts to define which measures emphasized biological aspects and have been limited are most likely to survive post-depositional processes. in many cases to a list of presence or absence of After applying the formula to samples from Korea, botanical remains. In recent years paleoethnobotani- the author reflects on how using comparable samples cal analyses have had much more of an is essential when making cultural inferences about anthropological orientation (Butzer 1982). The how botanical remains were used. Gyoung-Ah Lee anthropological perspective not only looks at socio- gives the reader a means to improve sampling ecological dynamics of the use of wild plants and decisions in the laboratory, to minimize time spent in food production but also seeks to improve theoretical analysis, and to assure comparability between frameworks, recovery techniques and develop new archaeobotanical assemblages. methodologies such as DNA, phytolith, and starch The second chapter by Luc Vrydaghs, Paul de analysis (Archila et al. 2008; VanDerwarker and Peres Paepe, Katrien Rutten and Ernie Haerinck is a 2010). detailed study of regional exchanges in South-eastern Ancient Plants and People: Contemporary Trends in Arabia during the Late Pre-Islamic period, using Archaeobotany is edited by members of a new phytolith analysis. Their study is a methodological generation of archaeobotanists: Marco Madella, Carla reflection on a new proxy: phytoliths from ceramic Lancelotti, and Manon Savard. After discussions thin sections show consistency between phytolith, about the meaning of archaeobotanical work during a petrographic and chemical data from different clay symposium of the International Work Group for samples. The study demonstrates that plant Palaeoethnobotany in 2013, in Holland, they decided microfossil analyses are direct evidence of pottery to bring together the work of twenty researchers from manufacture and regional exchange. There are fewer different parts of the world, writing about ethnology, problems with the context of these samples than with ethnoarchaeology, taphonomy and genetics in other archaeological studies of trade, exchange, and charcoal, phytoliths, seeds and fruits analyses, within source provenance (Tykot 2004). The results relevant environmental and social contexts. challenge our assumptions concerning the choices The volume is comprised of 14 chapters and potters made and regional pottery exchanges. organized into four sections: Methodologies in Closing this methodological section is the chapter Archaeobotany, Case Studies in Archaeobotany and Examining Agriculture and Climate Change in Vegetation History, Social Archaeobotany and Antiquity, by Alexia Smith. This article starts with our Genetics in Archaeobotany. In this review, I highlight current concerns about global warming and its impact the main contributions of each chapter in terms of on food production. She compares information from themes, theory and methodology. The first chapter is southwest Asia during the Bronze and Iron ages Sample Size Estimation and Inter-assemblage related to climatic changes and their effect on Quantification in Archaeobotany by Gyoung-Ah Lee. agricultural activities, using regional databases and

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):203-207. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.442. 203 Book Review published data. Smith believes that the data may be cumulative product of day-to-day human decisions biased due to the fact that it comes from different favouring nuts and roots, guided by a set of sources and has been analysed by various people. She microeconomic optimizing principles. Martinoli recommends integrating records of flora and fauna in reflects on the need to improve the identification of order to compare ancient climates and dates and their plants in archaeological contexts in order to re-think relationship to human activities. Finally, she reflects the interaction between ancient human groups, and on the interrelationship between climate change and the exploitation of plants for food and surrounding agriculture, and how the collapse of societies may be environments. This application of behavioural ecology understood as the result of a more complex process to the study of human agency and interaction with the involving the adaptation of people to climate change, environment is an interdisciplinary incursion by rather than the result of a single cause. This Martinoli to explain cultural change in Anatolia. As methodological proposal gives ways to refine the Zeder (2009) points out, Anatolia, as part of the Near analyses and approach the problematic of climatic East, has the oldest and most comprehensive record change and the emergence of agriculture on different of culture change related to agricultural origins. levels. Firstly, for future research, Smith takes into However, few case studies have used models from consideration both temporal and geographic scales. evolutionary biology. Martinoli´s chapter shows that Secondly, her exercise of comparing multiple data the optimal foraging models have something to offer sources allows the possibility of applying statistical in understanding the transition from foraging to tools, not only to create comparable data sets but also farming in the Near East. to correlate cultural and biological factors. Finally, Naomi Miller evaluates climate reconstruction in from a theoretical point of view, the interpretations of West Asia in relation to the origins of agriculture and the relationship between climate change and the collapse of societies. She uses diverse data such as agriculture, rather than focusing either on mono- or ancient texts, archaeological, and botanical data to multi-causality, re-directs the questions to the specific conclude that the interactions between farmers and capacity for resilience and adaptation of each human pastoral nomad communities, plants, and climate are group in the face of both environmental and social highly complex. Firstly, the most important result of changes. her chapter is the emphasis on how archaeobotanical The second major section, Case Studies in data demonstrates the impact of human populations Archaeobotany and Vegetation History, starts with in ancient Iran. Secondly, her comparisons question Sara Walshaw’s work on the archaeobotanical the geographical spread of the Younger Dryas and its evidence of Swahili Urban Food Production. role in the collapse and resilience of West Asian Walshaw concludes, after comparing botanical with communities. Miller´s results lead to a better linguistic and ethnohistorical data, that Swahili food understanding of how ancient agricultural societies production occurred at a household level and was fared under a fluctuating climate and regionally integrated with Asian exchange networks. Her chapter diverse environmental conditions. Finally, she gives a is a comprehensive study of plant food production cautionary note about methods and interpretative and the use of indigenous resources in sub-Saharan models of the Near East, given their unsuitability to Africa. Walshaw integrates the analysis of plant accommodate the multi-causal responses of human remains from archaeological sites in the specific societies to high variability in natural and process- context of East Africa with other data sources such as related effects in Mesopotamia. This concern is also linguistics and history. In an economic framework, shared in isotopic studies (Maxwell et al. 2014; Riehl Walshaw touches upon universal anthropological et al. 2014). topics such as diffusion of knowledge and Following a similar line, Simone Riehl´s study acculturation processes. presents a case of the relationships between Danièle Martinoli explores the use of the optimal environment and crop husbandry in Syria during the foraging model in relation to the exploitation of late Bronze and early Iron ages. She bases her plants by hunter-gather communities in Oküzini and archaeobotanical study on the remains of wild plant Karain B in Anatolia. The author uses this model as taxa. Using Correspondence Analysis, the author an interpretative aid to understand the absence of concludes that the wild plant taxa not only reflect small seeds in the archaeological record as the crop husbandry practices but are also the result of

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):203-207. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.442. 204 Book Review differences in climate, vegetation and soil type at the archaeological assemblages based on how and why sites. In other words, archaeobotany helps clarify how plant remains become charred and deposited within the environment is influenced by people. The use of archaeological contexts. This article includes diagrams multivariate statistical tools places this study beyond of crop processing activities, potential variables classical archaeobotanical research of the composition affecting pre-depositional, depositional, post- of woodland vegetation and the use of dung through depositional stages of charred assemblages, and the time as an additional source of information. The relationship between cereal disarticulation author is aware of various methodological challenges assemblages. Using the content of the assemblages such as different geographical areas of plant themselves, the authors suggest that archaeobotanical production, absence of radiocarbon dates and limited remains could be a result of recurrent activities of botanical samples. Riehl´s chapter is an important crop processing, storage strategies, craft production, contribution to the under-investigated area of the and dung burning activities. The remains studied were western central Levant. Her investigation fills research from Iron Age Ireland, Britain and Neolithic Villages gaps concerning the Late Bronze and Iron Age in South India and Pakistan; the studies question the economic and environmental history of southern assumption that assemblages reflect the function of Syria. the context itself. The authors observed differences in Kristen Gremillion´s chapter deals with the role composition of archaeobotanical assemblages, of crop diffusion on the Cumberland Plateau in including phytolith morphotype frequencies, crop North America. The author believes that a key aspect processing stages, and frequency of botanical remains. of Cumberland Plateau´s agriculture is not only These were later compared and interpreted to influence from Mesoamerican knowledge but the understand aspects of social organisation, in particular various alternative indigenous farming systems that the timing of food production, procurement, and were adapted to particular ecological conditions. Her storage activities. study is an example of how North American studies In chapter ten, Marco Madella briefly explores the of plant production have gradually shifted from role of plants and food choices in Indus civilizations description to explanation. Since beginning this study and the factors involved in those choices. In the in 2004, Gremillion has shown that the origins and author's opinion, these factors are environmental and spread of agriculture in Kentucky was complex and social aspects whose dynamics determines the this complexity becomes increasingly apparent as data exploitation of plant resources such as rice accumulates. In previous studies Gremillion used production. Based on this case study, Madella suggests behavioural ecology models along with opportunity- that the adoption of rice is either a result of cost arguments to generate and evaluate predictions environmental changes that create shortages of staple about the circumstances in which cultigens were autochthonous foods or a social consequence to adopted at the Cumberland Plateau. Therefore, to higher surpluses and the legitimation of roles of social address the limitations of models, the author uses display in the Harappa culture. The central argument migration and diffusion, not as they are used within of this article is that most studies examine the culture-historical paradigm, but rather as a archaeobotanical rice as an indicator of human complement that best explains observed data in ecology, food procurement strategies, and economic Kentucky. She posits that migration and diffusion systems. The acquisition and use of rice should also be were mechanisms that shaped autochthonous considered in the context of the belief systems of developments in the transition to farming on the human groups. Cumberland Plateau. The next chapter, by Rita Scheel-Ybert and Maria Dorian Fuller, Chris Stevens and Meriel Dulce Gaspar, presents a rare archaeobotanical study McClatchie discuss the analytical implications of from the Brazilian coast, which diverges from the charred plant assemblages from crop remains as a common ‘laundry list’ studies attached to old reports. result of incidental loss or waste disposal from routine Plant remains, specifically dead wood, were used in activities. In my opinion, this is the most interesting the past to produce charcoal now found in Brazilian article in the book because, from archaeobotanical, sambaquis (shell mounds), which the authors studied taphonomical and transcultural points of views, the with archaeobotanical and taphonomic techniques. authors question the relationship between context and These botanical remains are interpreted to be a result

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):203-207. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.442. 205 Book Review of prehistoric sustainable exploitation of the process in which plants also adapted to human surrounding landscape during a long period of environments (Allaby et al. 2015). climatic variations. The study of various shell mounds The last chapter by Linda Scott Cummings on the coast of Brazil provides an unprecedented suggests that environmental factors, such as humidity, paleoenvironmental reconstruction for this region and could influence the size of internal structures of maize also gives alternative insights into the use of plant kernels, specifically the size of phytoliths. The author remains as fuel and food consumption. The based her conclusions on experiments, statistical conservation of several plant fragments in sambaquis analysis, ethnographic data, and comparisons with shows that plants were far more important in the diet cobs from archaeological contexts from the United of ancient residents than is considered usual for States. Cummings suggests that maize phytolith people who exploited aquatic resources. These results genetics might help us to understand not only contradict the normative view that groups using diffusion and origins of maize but also social aspects aquatic resources are nomadic societies subject to such as human lineages, relationships in human climatic change (Archila et al. 2008). Instead, these populations, settlement patterns, as well as migration sedentary groups show a higher sociocultural and trade. The last decades have revealed new insights complexity and had territorial stability. into the phenotypic variation and plasticity of maize. Finally, the fourth section discusses the Archaeobotanical and genetic studies of the process relationship between genetics and archaeobotany and of maize domestication and diffusion has shown a begins with an article by Yo-Ichiro Sato. This author, contradiction between evidence supporting the earliest based on genetic studies and the use of statistical tools cultivation in the lowlands and the genetically such as Discriminant Function, suggests that the ancestral position of Mexican highland maize (Van cultivation of incipient Oryza japonica was carried out Heerwaarden et al. 2011). This chapter is one of few in the middle and lower basins of Yangtze River. works that addresses plastic responses by maize to According to DNA analyses, the author re-evaluates perturbations from environment and human factors, old theories, such as those that suggest that rice which could contribute to resolving this contradiction originated from one common source. This study and help to reassess the data from genetic studies shows that indica and japonica belong to two different alongside social considerations. races from different domestication events and both This compilation of contemporary work explores were the result of changing environmental conditions the interactions between human beings and plants by that pushed people to begin rice cultivation. examining archaeological evidence from ecological The next chapter is another genetic study by Ken- and evolutionary perspectives (Gremillion 1997) and Ichi Tanno who questions that six-row barley was social and post-processual perspectives. My only derived from two-row cultivated barley. The general criticism is that this compilation of articles does not assumption is that increase in seed production was a consider other centers of domestication in the common goal during the domestication of cereal Americas and focuses on cereals, wood, and seeds. crops. Using an experiment to determine the origin of Despite this, the volume will be a valued addition to six-row barley, he implies that it might be derived the libraries of geographers, cultural anthropologists, from two independent mutation events from two-row botanists, ecologists, archaeobotanists, environmental barleys. Furthermore, the author suggests the need for archaeologists, and students who are interested in the more archaeological evidence and collaborative changing relationships between human and plant genetic studies to confirm when and where this populations. happened and to elucidate the origin of barley. Archaeogenetic studies in plants have entered a new References Cited stage of maturity due to recent applications and Allaby R., R. Gutaker, A. Clarke, N. Pearson, R. Ware, technologies, which help to understand plant S. Palmer, J. Kitchen and O. Smith. 2015. Using evolution and their interaction with human Archaeogenomic and Computational Approaches to agricultural selection. Additionally, archaeogenetics Unravel the History of Local Adaptation in Crops. and computational models have changed the Philosophical Transaction B, Royal Society 370:20130377. understanding of the origins of domestic plants as a Doi:10.1098/rstb.2013.0377. relatively simplistic origin scenario to a complex

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):203-207. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.442. 206 Book Review

Archila, S., M. Giovannetti and V. Lema. 2008. Tykot, R. 2004. Scientific Methods and Applications Arqueobotánica y Teoría Arqueológica: Discusiones desde to Archaeological Provenance Studies. In Physics Surámerica. Universidad de Los Andes, Facultad de Methods in Archaeometry: Proceedings of the International Ciencias Sociales, Departamento de Antropología, School of Physics "Enrico Fermi", Volume 154 edited by CES. Ediciones Uniandes, Bogotá, Colombia. M. Martini, M. Milazzo, and M. Piacentini, pp. 407- 432. IOS Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Butzer, K. 1982. Archaeology as Human Ecology: Method and Theory for a Contextual Approach. Cambridge VanDerwarker, A. and T. Peres. 2010. Integrating University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany: A Consideration of Issues, Methods, and Cases. Springer, New York, NY. Gremmillion, K. 1997. People, Plants, and Landscapes: Studies in Paleoethnobotany. University of Alabama Van Heerwaarden, J., J. Doebley, W. Briggs, J. Press, Tuscaloosa, AL. Glaubitz, M. Goodman, J. Sanchez and J. Ross- Ibarra. 2011. Genetic Signals of Origin, Spread, and Maxwell, T., L. Silva and W. Horwath. 2014. Using Introgression in a Large Sample of Maize Landraces. Multi-element Isotopic Analysis to Decipher Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United Drought Impacts and Adaptive Management in States of America 108(3):1088-1092. Ancient Agricultural Systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of Zeder, M. 2009. Evolutionary Biology and the America 111(45):E4807-E4808. Emergence of Agriculture: The Value of Co-opted Models of Evolution in the Study of Culture Riehl, S., K. Pustovoytov, H. Weippert, S. Klett and Change. In Macroevolution in Human Prehistory: F. Hole. 2014. Drought Stress Variability in Ancient Evolutionary Theory and Processual Archaeology, edited by Near Eastern Agricultural Systems Evidenced by A. Prentiss, I. Kuijt, and J. Chatters, pp. 157-210. δ13C in Barley Grain. Proceedings of the National Springer, New York, NY. Academy of Science of the United States of America 111 (34):12348–12353.

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):203-207. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.442. 207