Climate, cultivation and early crops: late Pleistocene and early Holocene socioecological changes in the eastern Mediterranean

Vai ter lugar em Vitória a seguinte conferência:

Climate, cultivation and early crops: late Pleistocene and early Holocene socioecological changes in the eastern Mediterranean

Dr. Sue Colledge. Institute of Archaeology. University C. London

Lugar: Salón de Grados, Facultad de Letras. UPV/EHU.

Dia e Hora: Viernes, 10 de junio, 12.00 h.

The coincidence of climatic amelioration or degradation in the late Pleistocene/early Holocene of SW Asia (i.e., from c.15,000 to 10,500 cal BP) with the origins of organized food procurement and production cannot be overlooked, whether or not these events were the major impetus for change during this period. Archaeological evidence for the same period is well established; there are clear diachronic trends in settlement (e.g., most notably site size increase) and material culture traits that represent profound changes in social systems. For example, from the late Epipalaeolithic to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) the region witnessed the appearance of complex hunter-gatherers, the founding of the first permanently settled villages and the initiation of crop-based agriculture.

Archaeobotanical evidence from late Epipalaeolithic and PPNA sites in SW Asia is sparse. Very few sites dated prior to c.10,500 cal BP have large and diverse assemblages of plant remains that can be used to construct datasets for testing climate-based hypotheses of agricultural origins. However, at a small number of tell sites situated in the Euphrates Valley in northern Syria charred plant materials are preserved in quantities that have allowed detailed investigation of changes in emphasis of plant food exploitation, which may indicate deliberate management, or cultivation, of wild crops.

The nature of the processes by which the economic and cultural elements regarded as Neolithic subsequently spread beyond SW Asia continues to be the subject of much debate. An important set of data that has hitherto been largely absent from this debate is the preserved crops and associated weeds of the earliest farmers. These data have hitherto rarely been collated or analysed in a systematic manner on a large spatial scale, which is essential for understanding the chronological framework for the evolution of the earliest domestic crops (i.e., the ‘founder crops’) and the initial dispersals from their location/s of origin.