By Dr Melissa Rosenzweig

Crops of Tel Akko

In this post I am going to run through some of the most common domesticated plant species that we find in the archaeological record at Tel Akko.  These taxa give us a good sense of the economic plants used at Tel Akko, particularly for food.

The two most prolific crops at Tel Akko, from all the historical periods excavated thus far, are olive (Olea europaea) and grape (Vitis vinifera).  Fun fact: The grape pips we recover occasionally show up mineralized, rather than charred.  This means people ate these seeds, which then calcified as they passed through the human gut (Green 1979).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cereals were also staples at Tel Akko.  We find grains of barley (Hordeum sp.) and different varieties of wheat (Triticum spp.).  Wheat would have been the preferred grain for people to eat, while barley would have been consumed by humans and fed to animals as fodder.

A handful of pulses, which comprise beans and peas, are found in the Tel Akko excavations.  They include lentil (Lens culinaris), common pea (Pisum sativum), and bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia).  Fun fact: Bitter vetch is considered a famine crop because it has to be boiled in order to be safe and palatable for human consumption (Zohary and Hopf 2000: 116).  However, this legume was also a popular fodder crop for livestock, who ate it as-is without any harmful side effects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other plants that round out our picture of cultivated crops at Tel Akko include fig (Ficus carica), safflower (Carthamus sp.), and flax (Linum usitatissimum).  Fun facts: We only have a few finds of safflower thus far.  But these seeds provide tantalizing links to maritime contacts with the Egyptians, who grew and prized safflower for both its oil (used in cooking) and red dye (used in cloth production) (Marinova and Riehl 2009: 345-6).  We have recovered just two (two!) flax seeds so far, but these plants were also important sources of oil (linseed) and linen for textiles.  They are hard to find archaeologically because their rich oil content makes them susceptible to ashing, rather than charring, when exposed to fire.  By the first millennium BCE, safflower and flax were largely (but not entirely) replaced by the red/purple dye of Murex shellfish and sheep wool for textiles.  And as it turns out, we have a fair amount of Murex shells and sheep bones (Ovis sp.) at Tel Akko.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Green, Francis J. (1979) Phosphatic mineralization of seeds from archaeological sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 6: 279-284.

Margaritis, Evi and Martin Jones (2008) Olive oil production in Hellenistic Greece: The interpretation of charred olive remains from the site of Tria Platania, Macedonia, Greece. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17: 393-401.

Marinova, Elena and Simone Riehl (2009) Carthamus species in the ancient Near East and south-eastern Europe: Archaeobotanical evidence for their distribution and use as a source of oil. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 18: 341-9.

Zohary, Daniel and Maria Hopf (2000) Domestication of Plants in the Old World.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

By Dr Melissa Rosenzweig

What is Archaeobotany?

Archaeobotany is a sub-specialization within environmental archaeology that studies human interactions with plants in the past. There are several approaches to recovering plant remains in archaeological contexts, from the collection of microscopic fossil pollen, starches, and phytoliths (the silicate skeletons of plant cell structures), to the recovery of macroscopic charred seeds and wood charcoal. I conduct the latter, and study carbonized seed remains under a microscope to identify plant species. It turns out that if seeds are fired just right (crispy, but not ashy) they can preserve in the archaeological record for thousands, even tens of thousands, of years. Once I identify these seeds I’m able to assemble information on changes in agricultural production and plant consumption over time (e.g. Did the residents of Tel Akko cultivate different crops at different times?) and over space (e.g. Did the people of Tel Akko use different kinds of plants in different contexts on the site?). Plant remains can also help us reconstruct ancient landscapes; track the use of forage, graze and fodder for livestock; and ask questions about the kinds of social interactions that plants facilitate: e.g. Did food choices distinguish different ethnic or status groups? Did men and women conduct different kinds of agricultural labor? Did people in the past promote sustainable environmental practices, or engage in lifestyles that led to erosion, deforestation or pollution?

 

 

 

When you think about it, most of the artifacts that archaeologists recover reflect only a very small proportion of the material culture that people utilized in the past. We find what endures: stone and mudbrick architecture, pottery, lithics (stone tools), bones, and metal items. But people in the past relied on and made so many other kinds of objects, a great deal of them from plant materials: e.g. timber architecture, wooden furniture and utensils, woven textiles, reed baskets, written documents, and, of course, plant foods. This continues to be the case today, even in the age of plastics. Look around you (and on you), and you will find materials made from plants that make your daily life possible.  Archaeobotany is an attempt to recuperate these hard-to-find but oh-so-important physical elements of human life.

 

Still want to hear more about archaeobotany? Allow me to explain in person

 

 

Crops of Tel Akko
What is Archaeobotany?