Archaeobotany

Archaeobotany explores people’s engagement with plants and landscapes through analysis of preserved plant remains. Delicate, sometimes fragmentary, remains of plants are often recovered from archaeological excavations because in certain conditions this material can survive for thousands of years. When identified, plant remains enable the archaeobotanist to reveal how humans created, modified, and engaged with their physical and social environments through space and time. A wide variety of research questions can be explored in archaeobotany, including foodways, agricultural and other management practices, environments, medicines, textiles, structures, and furnishings. In its methodological and theoretical approaches, archaeobotany draws from many disciplines, including botany, plant genetics, agricultural studies, ethnography, history, and archaeology. Terms other than archaeobotany are sometimes used to refer to this discipline, including “palaeoethnobotany” and “palaeobotany.” The term “palaeoethnobotany” emphasizes human interactions with plants, while “palaeobotany” is focused on environments. The term “archaeobotany” is more appropriate because it combines the study of both human interactions and landscapes, and this dual approach is better suited to research objectives in archaeology. There are two broad groups of material in archaeobotany: macro-remains and micro-remains. Plant macro-remains are more often studied, but analysis of micro-remains is becoming increasingly popular. Plant macro-remains usually refer to plant structures that can be seen with the naked eye (often >0.5mm) but require low-powered microscopy for identification. Seeds and fruits of higher plants are most often studied, including cereal grains and chaff, nuts and nutshell, stones and seeds of fruits, and seeds of wild plants (the word “seed” is used here in its broadest sense). Other plant macro-remains, some of which require higher-powered microscopy, can include remains of cooked food, cereal bran (part of the periderm of the grass caryopsis), vegetative components of plants (such as leaves, bud scales and thorns), parenchyma (underground storage organs of plants, such as roots and tubers), plant fibers, wood and charcoal, and lower plants, such as mosses and fungi. Commonly investigated plant micro-remains include pollen, phytoliths, and starch grains. Some categories of remains (such as seeds) can inform on local, short-term human interactions with plants, whereas others (such as pollen) can reflect regional, longer-term interactions. The category of plant remains selected for analysis will usually depend on research questions and expected preservation conditions.