In this paper, we present an archaeobotanical study from Old Dongola, northern Sudan, examining agricultural dynamics and subsistence strategies from the Late Christian to the Islamic period. Old Dongola, established in the 5th century, served as the capital of the Kingdom of Makuria, one of the three medieval Nubian kingdoms. Following the collapse of Makuria in the 14th century, the city underwent significant cultural and social transformations, marked by the migration of Arab tribes and the rise of new power structures. From the 14th to the 18th century, Old Dongola served as the seat of a local ruler who became subordinate to the Funj Sultanate in the 16th century, a period that witnessed religious conversion, migration, and political reorganisation associated with the gradual conversion to Islam in the region. This study is distinguished by a systematic sampling strategy, with sediments collected from every excavated context in the citadel of Old Dongola. The archaeobotanical results, spanning the Kingdom of Dongola and Funj periods (14th-18th centuries), shed light on the dietary habits of the site's inhabitants. The evidence indicates an increasing reliance on sorghum, alongside a gradual decline of bread wheat and hulled barley. The introduction of crops such as tobacco and eggplant from the 16th century onwards may reflect broader economic and cultural shifts occurring during this period of religious and demographic change, though a direct causal link between these crop introductions and processes of demographic change or conversion to Islam cannot be established from archaeobotanical evidence alone. This study contributes to our understanding of agricultural change in early modern Sudan, adding to an understudied archaeobotanical record at a time of significant socio-political transition.

Chogha Golan (modern Ilam Province, Iran) plays a key role in ongoing debates concerning the emergence of Neolithic economies in the Hilly Flanks of the eastern Fertile Crescent due to its high-resolution record of animal and plant exploitation from ca. 11,700 to 9600 cal BP. Here, we synthesize geoarchaeological, zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical data from Chogha Golan to examine environmental and economic changes throughout the Aceramic Neolithic. Since the beginning of the occupation, the inhabitants of the site focused on the use of wild barley, goat grass, and other progenitors of modern crops, while they also exploited ovicaprids, gazelles, and small game taxa. The frequencies and taxonomic composition of both plant and animal species fluctuate through time, against the backdrop of superimposed architectural features. Tortoises were overexploited soon after people settled at Chogha Golan. At ca. 9800 cal BP, we document morphologically domesticated-type emmer wheat, indicating the intensified cultivation of cereals. The progressive increase in the proportion of ovicaprids relative to gazelles evidences an increased reliance on the progenitors of domesticated animals. Finally, the presence of Indian gerbils, which preferentially live near cultivated fields today, reflects new habitats for small mammals resulting from long-term resource management and cultivation. Thus, the archaeological record of Chogha Golan illustrates the intertwining of changes in environmental conditions, resource intensification, and co-evolutionary dynamics that led to the emergence of agriculture and Neolithic lifeways in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains.

Agriculture was central to the historical development of the Levant, with food storage ensuring year-round availability and managing seasonal, environmental, and climatic challenges. Additionally, studying storage practices reveals insights into production organization, surplus management, and socio-economic structures linked to urbanization and trade. While archaeological and archaeobotanical research has advanced our understanding of Levantine agriculture, a comprehensive archaeobotanical synthesis of Bronze and Iron Age storage remains lacking. This study examines how storage contexts can be identified archaeologically and archaeobotanically, what was stored, how practices varied regionally and chronologically, and which additional practices play a role. New material from underrepresented regions, such as Kamid el-Loz in the central Levant (Lebanon), expands the ADEMNES dataset. Data from 18 sites with identified storage contexts and 43 sites with non-storage contexts are synthesized to provide a region-wide analysis. Based on this study, key criteria for identifying storage contexts include the presence of storage facilities or containers if preserved, substantial in situ concentrations of charred plant remains, predominance of easily preserved crops, largely cleaned assemblages, and potential evidence of storage pests. Multivariate analysis, namely Principal Component Analysis (PCA), shows that storage context is the main factor shaping plant assemblages, followed by chronological, regional, environmental, and socio-economic factors. In conclusion, this study offers a more systematic understanding of Bronze and Iron Age Levantine food storage practices from an archaeobotanical point of view.

Various researchers have demonstrated periods of instability in the cultivation of olives and grapes in the eastern Mediterranean, dating back at least to the Early Bronze Age. So far, pollen-based studies have focused primarily on olive cultivation in the southern Levant. Our research extends these studies to include both cash crops throughout the Levant and northern Mesopotamia, including several different climatic zones, to better understand the diversity of human strategies for maintaining agricultural stability. We analysed 1,514 charred olive (Olea europaea) and grape (Vitis vinfera) seed and wood samples from archaeological sites for their stable carbon isotope ratios to reconstruct Bronze and Iron Age growing conditions. The results, with generally 3.7‰ higher Δ13C values in grapevine than in olive, are consistent with the physiological characteristics of the two species, i.e., their water use efficiency, and with their different agronomic needs. Furthermore, higher values in charcoals than in fruits indicate the natural differences in the budgets of water availability associated with the period of formation of the measured plant tissue. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) of the complete data set shows clear correlation of the mean Δ13C values with reconstructed average precipitation (RAP) and the general north-south and west-east decline in precipitation of the region, as well as with chronology, including a gradual drying trend through time. Principal component analysis (PCA) based on these variables shows a highly diversified relationship between mean and maximum stress levels and RAP at different sites over time. An important trend is the significant accumulation of Iron Age sites in olive-growing and wine-producing regions above 500 mm RAP. However, there are considerable diachronic differences in the stress signals for the two tree crops. Interpolations of the mean Δ13C values of the crop species are in good agreement with the layout of the isohyets and visualize the PCA patterns of stable carbon isotope and precipitation relationships thereby confirming the major trends such as a better water availability in the Iron Age. The well-known major climatic fluctuations at 4.2 and 3.2 kyr BP correlate with likely irrigation of olive trees, while there are also drought patterns indicated in the Δ13C values at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. In general, the greater commitment to the establishment of agricultural niches and successful production for viticulture compared to oleiculture, which has already been observed in historical times, is confirmed, at least since the Middle Bronze Age and especially in the Iron Age.

This archaeobotanical study represents the first comprehensive study of the Late Bronze Age Hittite subsistence use of plants and woodland vegetation in the Black Sea region. Seed/fruit and wood-charcoal analyses were conducted to gain insight into the plant-based economy of the site. The economic seed plants reveal that the main annual crops were barley, free-threshing wheat, and emmer, along with pulses like lentil, bitter vetch, grass pea, broad bean, and garden pea. In addition, a variety of fruits and nuts were used. The charcoal analyses show the use of different woodland types and, together with the spectrum of wild plant macrofossils, paint a picture of extensive anthropogenic activity on the natural vegetation. Previous research postulated that Hittite agriculture was strongly influenced by cultural and political factors. The climatic conditions and the natural environment of the Hittite sites played a less important role in the choice of agricultural products than traditional ties to systematic surplus production of specific crops. To test this hypothesis, we compare seed assemblages from Oymaağaç Höyük with those from other Late Bronze Age and Hittite settlements in Anatolia and northern Syria and investigate possible environmental constraints and cultural trends. Climatic factors, such as the general regional climate patterns as well as mean annual precipitation, were taken into consideration when discussing the plant diversity. Our results confirm a strong cultural pattern of plant subsistence at Oymaağaç Höyük, which is similar to that in other Hittite sites in Central Anatolia, while it differs from other non-Hittite settlements with comparable rainfall regimes.

Kamid el-Loz, an archaeological site in present-day Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, offers a rare opportunity to study ancient crop production in the central Levant, where archaeobotanical data, particularly from inland sites, remain limited. During the Middle Bronze Age II and Late Bronze Age, Kamid el-Loz functioned as an urban center exerting control over its hinterland and regulating movement, with its advantageous position along two major trans-regional trade routes. By the Early Iron Age, however, it had declined into a small rural settlement. We analyzed macro-botanical remains from Kamid el-Loz in relation to a comparative dataset drawn from 44 other Levantine sites, based on the ADEMNES database. Quantitative methods and multivariate statistical analyses were applied to identify patterns, reconstruct agricultural practices over time, and detect regional diversifications. First, the study discusses the archaeobotanical material of Kamid el-Loz. Secondly, this is compared with other central Levantine sites, highlighting differences in crop assemblages between coastal and inland areas, mainly linked to a focus on fruit tree cultivation or not. The study then assesses how patterns from Kamid el-Loz and the central Levant align with or diverge from those in the northern and southern Levant, emphasizing the region's significance within ancient agricultural exchange networks. In general, the central Levant assemblages align more with the trends observed in the southern Levant, while Kamid el-Loz, an inland site, seems to rely more on cereals and pulses, which aligns more with northern Levantine traditions.

Old Dongola in northern Sudan, with a history dating back to the 5th century, was the capital of the Christian Kingdom of Makuria, one of the three medieval Nubian kingdoms. Following the collapse of Makuria in the 14th century, the city underwent significant cultural and social transformations, marked by migration of Arab tribes and the rise of new power structures. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Old Dongola served as the seat of a local ruler under the Funj Sultanate, reflecting its integration into wider Islamic governance. This period saw the emergence of diverse communities, shaped by the interplay of religious conversion, migration, and political changes. Here we present new archaeobotanical findings obtained through the application of a systematic sampling by collecting sediments from each excavated context, and a recovery strategy which combined flotation and dry sieving at the citadel of Old Dongola in northern Sudan. Our archaeobotanical results, spanning the Kingdom of Dongola and the Funj periods (14th-18th centuries), shed light on the development of dietary habits of the inhabitants of the city, which primarily revolved around cereals like sorghum, pearl millet, barley, and wheat, supplemented by crops such as purslane and fruits including watermelon, dates, grapes, and figs. Furthermore, the analysis of plant remains provided insights into the consumption of pulses such as cowpea and grass pea. Importantly, the discovery of imported plants, including tobacco seeds, underscores the significance of Old Dongola in the ancient world's trade networks. These findings greatly enhance our understanding of subsistence practices and the utilisation of economic and medicinal plants in the region.

This study synthesizes a large dataset of published and new charcoal and seed data from archaeological fire installations in southwest Asia to gain an understanding in regional and temporal variation in fuel use through the last 10,000 years. It considers wood (charcoal) fuel, and its underlying selection and management, as well as agropastoral by-products, and the role of population pressure. It focusses on regional diachronic trends, as well as zooms in on three regions: The Middle Euphrates, Faynan and Kinet Hoy & uuml;k region. From the late 4th millennium BC onwards, marked changes in fuel use took place, with alternative fuels like dung and jift/pomace increasingly used. This change coincides with population pressure, which seems to have caused the progressive exhaustion of local wood resources, and economic changes, which may have made wood fuel alternatives more plentiful. The Southern Middle Euphrates, for example, saw a shift towards increased use of imported, possibly reused or remnant, coniferous fuel wood in the 2nd millennium BC. In the long term, we do not see much evidence for sustainability of exploitation, but there are some indications for possible intentional sustainable behavior like coppicing and/or pollarding in the Middle Euphrates during the Early Bronze Age, using pruning remains especially in the Levant, and more centrally organized woodland management in Southern Mesopotamia. We found indications for 'least effort' and 'opportunistic' behavior in former fuel collection but also of selection towards higher quality fuels when choice was possible. Our results demonstrate the capacity for large scale comparative analyses of this type to shed light on the complex decision-making processes underlying fuel use.

This paper explores the use of wild animals in the southern Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages (3600–586 BCE), with a particular focus on deer. Our research examines how deer exploitation reflects the interplay between the environmental conditions and cultural practices of past societies in the region. To address our research questions, we employed a multifaceted approach that includes the analysis of the relative abundance of deer across more than 140 zooarchaeological assemblages, spatial density analysis to understand diachronic and regional patterns, correlations between annual precipitation and deer abundance, and multivariate statistics. These methods enable us to examine regional and diachronic variation in the role of deer within subsistence economies and for non-economic use. Our findings highlight several key insights: first, motivations for hunting deer stemmed from diverse factors that varied diachronically; second, assemblages containing a higher abundance of deer bones were typically located close to water sources or in areas with higher humidity; and third, deer meat, bones, and antlers were used for non-subsistence purposes, including but not limited to markers of social prestige, ritual activities, and medicinal practices.

This paper presents a unique archaeobotanical discovery of stored crops from two domestic structures at Old Dongola in Northern Sudan, dating to the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries CE. The findings provide new insights into aspects of cuisine during the early Funj period (1504–1821 CE) and its historical roots. The assemblage of stored crops—including sorghum, bread wheat, hulled barley, grass pea, cowpea, and radish seeds—reveals a blend of Mediterranean and African influences, reflecting the diverse cultural spheres that converged at Old Dongola. We argue that these crops constituted a fundamental component of the local diet and served as the primary carbohydrate sources for the inhabitants. The size of the storage vessels and containers suggests small-scale storage practices aimed at daily subsistence. Moreover, the location of these stored crops within domestic spaces indicates a household-based economy, in which crop processing and storage were organized at the individual household level.

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Crop husbandry, the growing, caring and management of crop species as practiced by ancient societies, is studied by various archaeological disciplines, above all archaeobotany and stable isotope analysis on plant remains. This entry presents some theoretical considerations on crop husbandry and a diachronic summary on its role in human societies, as well as different aspects of crop husbandry as studied by archaeobotanists with a focus on cereal cultivation in the Near East. Among the different activities, tillage, irrigation, weeding, manuring, crop rotation and crop processing are the main areas of archaeobotanical contribution.

One of the largest isotopic datasets of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean region is evaluated, based on plants (n = 410), animals (n = 210) and humans (n = 16) from Tell Tweini (Syria). Diachronic analysis of plant and faunal specimens from four main periods of occupation: Early Bronze Age (2600-2000 BC), Middle Bronze Age (2000-1600 BC), Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC) and Iron Age (1200-333 BC) were investigated. Mean Δ13C results from seven plant species reveal emmer and free threshing wheat, olives, bitter vetch, rye grass and barley were adequately or well-watered during all periods of occupation. The grape Δ13C results suggest excellent growing conditions and particular care for its cultivation. The δ15N results indicate that especially the emmer and free threshing wheats received some manure inputs throughout the occupation sequence, while these were likely further increased during the Iron Age, encompassing also the olive groves and grape vineyards. Generally, domestic animals (cattle, sheep, goats) had C3 terrestrial diets and were kept together in similar environments. However, some animals consumed significant amounts of marine or C4 plants, possibly from disturbed habitats due to land use pressure or salt tolerant grasses and shrubs from wetland environments, which were recorded in the direct vicinity of the site. Middle Bronze Age humans consumed a C3 terrestrial diet with no measurable input from C4, freshwater or marine protein sources. Interestingly, the human diet was relatively low in animal protein and appears comparable to what is considered today a typical Mediterranean diet consisting of bread (wheat/barley), olives, grapes, pulses, dairy products and small amounts of meat. The combined isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Tell Tweini represents unbroken links in the food chain which create unparalleled opportunities to enhance our current understanding of environmental conditions, climate change and lifeways in past populations from the Eastern Mediterranean.

In this paper charcoals from the Syrian sites Tell Mozan and Tell Jerablus are investigated to understand the impact of 4th to 2nd millennium BC settlement on the vegetation. Charcoals from these sites have been identified and oak fragments have been measured for their maximal diameter and annual ring widths. Our results show that while oak had reached its maximal expansion in the Mid-Holocene, and vegetation in the Euphrates Valley was lusher than today, strong anthropogenic impact on the vegetation was occurring, probably already prior to the Late Chalcolithic period. Due to potentially enormous herds of sheep and goat, and possibly large-scale agriculture with perhaps some understory cropping, oak was growing very slowly, to the degree that it must often have had a shrub-like appearance. People did not apply systematic oak woodland management practices, such as coppicing or pollarding. They used dung as an additional fuel, probably to cover for shortages in wood resources. The land appears to have been used both intensively and extensively to a degree that was not sustainable in the long term. This, combined with aridity impact on the oak, probably led to a decrease in oak proportion at Mozan in the Middle Bronze Age.

Evaluating archaeobotanical data from over 3.9 million seeds and 124,300 charcoal fragments across 330 archaeological site phases in Southwest Asia, we reconstruct the history of olive and grape cultivation spanning a period of 6,000 years. Combining charcoal and seed data enables investigation into both the production and consumption of olive and grape. The earliest indication for olive and grape cultivation appears in the southern Levant around ca. 5000 BC and 4th millennium BC respectively, although cultivation may have been practiced prior to these dates. Olive and grape cultivation in Southwest Asia was regionally concentrated within the Levant until 600 BC, although there were periodic pushes to the East. Several indications for climate influencing the history of olive and grape cultivation were found, as well as a correlation between periods of high population density and high proportions of olive and grape remains in archaeological sites. While temporal uncertainty prevents a detailed understanding of the causal mechanisms behind these correlations, we suggest that long distance trade in olives, grapes and their associated products was integral to the economic, social, and demographic trajectories of the region.

A stratigraphic sequence from Ghar-e Boof, a cave site in Iran, covering a period of c. 80,000–30,000 BP and containing more than 20,000 seed and chaff remains, allows a detailed study of the use of annual seed species of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer groups and its evolution under the influence of changing environmental conditions. Taxonomic changes in the archaeobotanical assemblage and the stable carbon isotope data of pistachio support a considerable change in environmental conditions over the sequence from MIS 5a to MIS 3. The exceptional dominance of wild ancestors of modern crop species, including glume wheat and large-seeded legumes from Middle Palaeolithic layers AH VI (OSL ranges 72–81 ka BP), coincides broadly with the transition from MIS 5a to MIS 4. With the beginning of MIS 4 these taxa are strongly reduced, corresponding with a strong decrease in global CO2 concentrations and in the Δ13C values of Pistacia khinjuk/atlantica from the site. Wild glume wheat completely disappears after Middle Palaeolithic AH Vb and never reappears at the site. We hypothesize that the Middle Palaeolithic niche that allowed the harvesting and consumption of wild cereals and legumes ended with a destabilization of the vegetation in early MIS 4.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope measurements have been conducted on 37 archaeobotanical seed remains from Early and Middle Bronze Age levels at Tel Kabri to better understand ancient environmental conditions and agriculture, particularly in response to limited seed and chaff preservation at the site. Inter-site comparison of the Δ13C values elucidate barley and emmer wheat experienced a considerably higher drought stress signal than at other sites, characterizing these cereals as unirrigated crop species, possibly in some distance from the settlement, whereas the overall record from other crop species indicates that water availability was well-balanced for most of the crops. Manuring at Tel Kabri was probably limited in intensity and to some few crop species, such as emmer wheat. δ15N ranges in olive are very broad, possibly indicating that they derive from different cultivation plots and reflect different soil qualities.

Recent excavations at the site of Tel Kabri have brought some extraordinary findings, including the earliest wine cellar in the ancient Near East discovered in 2013. During these excavations, archaeobotanical samples were collected continuously and then processed in 2019. The archaeobotanical studies focus on the Middle Bronze Age palace in Area DW and the Early Bronze Age domestic deposits in Area L. The results confirm the different nature of the two contexts. Legumes form a large portion of the crop remains in the Early Bronze Age Area L: Lathyrus sativus (grass pea), Vicia faba var. minor (faba bean), and Lens culinaris (lentil), all showing no drought stress and similar growing conditions in terms of moisture availability, as indicated by stable carbon isotope measurements. For Area L, several wild seeds have been identified to represent weeds of cereal crops, whereas Area DW is strongly affected by small wild seeds that entered the sediments as modern contaminants. Fruit crops are present in both assemblages with Olea europaea (olive), representing the most ubiquitous taxon, and Vitis vinifera (grape), with most of its pips found mineralized. The identified remains also include cereal crops, primarily Triticum dicoccum (emmer), which appears cultivated under exceptionally dry conditions. The stable nitrogen values for emmer also raised some questions regarding the growing location and cultivation strategy. Correspondence analysis has been applied, comparing the archaeobotanical assemblages of Tel Kabri within the wider geographical and chronological Levantine context and determining their placement in sub-regional patterns.