Expanding Paleoindian Diet Breadth: Paleoethnobotany of Connley Cave 5, Oregon, USA

Paleoethnobotanical perspectives are essential for understanding past lifeways yet continue to be underrepresented in Paleoindian research. We present new archaeobotanical and radiocarbon data from combustion features within stratified cultural components at Connley Caves, Oregon, that reaffirm the inclusion of plants in the diet of Paleoindian groups. Botanical remains from three features in Connley Cave 5 show that people foraged for diverse dryland taxa and a narrow range of wetland plants during the summer and fall months. These data add new taxa to the known Pleistocene food economy and support the idea that groups equipped with Western Stemmed Tradition toolkits had broad, flexible diets. When viewed continentally, this work contributes to a growing body of research indicating that regionally adapted subsistence strategies were in place by at least the Younger Dryas and that some foragers in the Far West may have incorporated a wider range of plants including small seeds, leafy greens, fruits, cacti, and geophytes into their diet earlier than did Paleoindian groups elsewhere in North America. The increasing appearance of diverse and seemingly low-ranked resources in the emerging Paleoindian plant-food economy suggests the need to explore a variety of nutritional variables to explain certain aspects of early foraging behavior.

Tiger Nuts

The importance of archaeobotany has been widely recognized in recent years, and more research is being conducted to study botanical remains. Only a very few of the cultivated vegetables grown in fields and in gardens were indigenous to Egypt, but one was the tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus L.) which was known and consumed since the Predynastic Period. Remains of dry tiger nuts tubers were found in large quantities in tombs from Neolithic times onwards. Some were found inside the stomachs of bodies as early as the Predynastic Period. Tiger nuts are attested in funerary offering lists, festival offerings, in medicine and in diet. This paper sheds light on the importance of tiger nuts and its different uses. It also urges their use in modern Egypt.

Pollen, charcoal and phytolith records from the Late Quaternary of southern Africa: vegetation and climate interpretations

Although the lack of Late Quaternary pollen, phytolith and charcoal records for southern Africa has been bemoaned by many, there are a surprising number of publications by a relatively small group of researchers. Previous comprehensive reviews covered the research up to 2016 and 2018 so this paper only considers a selection of more recent studies, with a focus on the three types of botanical remains (pollen, phytoliths, micro- and macro-charcoal). The newer works use the traditional approaches of identification of vegetation and the use of modern analogues to reconstruct past climate and relate the results to other works and proxies. Sibudu Cave, with its long record and multi-proxy record is presented as a case study because the vegetation, climate and human behaviour are well integrated together. A more recent and general trend to provide emphasis on identifying climate driving forces and re-interpretation of data have a tendency to obscure the original sound research.

The enigma on the date of the 79 AD Vesuvius eruption: lesson from grape archaeobotanical remains

<p>The sites destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (southern Italy) in AD 79 provide a complete picture of life in Campania during the 1<sup>st</sup> century AD. Among the archaeological areas, the Vesuvian region constitutes an exceptional case for the wealth of botanical remains. The presence and quantity of these materials in the Vesuvian area depend on the heat of volcanic materials such as the fallout of pumice, ash and gas emitted during the eruption. Therefore, this eruption has determined, together with archaeological finds, the preservation of thousands of botanical remains represented especially by food plants like cereals (i.e. T<em>riticum dicoccum; Hordeum vulgare; Setaria italica</em>) and pulses (i.e. <em>Vicia faba</em> var. <em>minor</em>; <em>Lens culinaris</em>), olive (<em>Olea europaea</em> var. <em>europaea</em>) and grape remains (<em>Vitis vinifera</em> subsp. <em>vinifera</em>). The eruption date is still matter of discussion. Indeed, the classical theory according to the story described by Pliny the Young indicates the 24 August as the date of eruption, while recently some scholars hypothesize that the correct day is the 24 October 79 AD. The discrepancy is probably due to a wrong medieval transcription of the original text by Pliny. Some botanical remains might help solve this  dispute. For example, the analysis of wood anatomical traits can be targeted to detect how much of the yearly wood increment had been produced at the time of eruption. Also the variation of the conduit anatomical traits in the last wood increment might be an indicator to reconstruct the season when the vines were destroyed. In this study, we used leaf and wood remnants of <em>V. vinifera</em> to determine the phenological phase of the vines at the time of eruption in order to provide evidence for supporting one of the two hypotheses. More specifically, a morpho-anatomical characterization was carried out on wood samples coming from Herculaneum ruins (Ercolano), and on tendrils and leaves with evidence of pruning coming from Oplontis site (Torre Annunziata). This study case is a proof of concept of the application potential of a trait-based approach in palaeobotany.</p>

Towards the Mid-Late Holocene Environment of Mochena Borago Rock Shelter, Wolayta, South Ethiopia

With the objective of understanding the mid-late Holocene subsistence pattern and the local ecology, archaeobotanical investigation was conducted on soil samples collected from 29 contexts from the rock shelter site of Mochena Borago. The samples were collected by the French Archaeological Mission in 2000 and 2001 field seasons. Flotation was carried out using bucket and 2.0 mm mesh size sieve. Recovered botanical remains were classified based on size and grain morphology. Seed analysis was conducted at 5-20x magnification. A total of 112 seeds and fruit stones were identified which include 55 Sapindaceae cf. Deinbollia type (dune soap-berry), 33 Myrtaceae cf. Syzigium guineense type (sometimes called waterberry), 9 Plectranthus edulis (Wolayta dinich/potato), 7 Euphorbiaceae Croton sp. (rushfoil), 2 Cordia cf. africana (wanza in Amharic), 1 Ebenaceae cf. Diospyros (commonly known as ebony trees), 1 Olea europea ssp. africana (Olive Oil). Plectranthus edulis is an indigenous crop for the study area and Cordia cf. africana and Olea europea ssp. africana are reported for the first time in archaeological context of the whole region of Ethiopia. The study provided data on the ancient economy and ecology of the site in a region where archaeobotanical research is limited.

The Qingtang site in Yingde City, Guangdong Province

From 2016 through 2018, Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and other institutions excavated the Qingtang site, the foci of which were concentrated in Caves 1–4 of Huangmenyan locality. The excavation recovered burials and hearths and unearthed human bone fossils, lithic products, pottery wares, implements made of shell, bone, and horn (antler), as well as faunal and botanical remains, in total over 10,000 pieces. The remains of this site could be divided into four phases from the earliest to the latest, which provided important data for the studies on the cultures in South China and Southeast Asia during the transitional period from Paleolithic to Neolithic Ages.