Archaeobotanical Research in Ancient Near East

Matteo Delle Donne – June 2020

Introduction

This was the last day of the cycle of lectures for PhD students entitled The exploitation of plants during protohistory, held by Matteo Delle Donne at the University of Naples L’Orientale.

The lectures aimed to provide some theoretical and methodological tools needed to understand the ancient relationship between humans and the environment, through the presentation of specific case studies, among which Urkesh/Tell Mozan was also included.

The abstract

The cycle of lectures entitled The exploitation of plants during protohistory aims to provide some theoretical and methodological tools needed to understand the ancient relationship between man and the environment, through the presentation of specific case studies, among Northeastern Africa, Near and Middle East, in protohistoric times.

The analysis and study of a great number of plant remains from the archaeological sites investigated by Italian expeditions among Egypt Naqada, Sudan Kassala, and Eritrea Adulis allowed to deepen our knowledge about a particular aspect of the past. Moreover, investigation on the cereal ears depicted on Aksumite coins provided new elements of reflection for understanding the importance of cereal cultivation in Ethiopian agriculture, both today and in past.

The study of plant remains from Tell Mozan northeastern Syria made it possible to obtain new information about the peculiar relationship between the ancient communities settled in the Upper Khabur region and their own environment. In order to achieve this goal, an interdisciplinary approach has been adopted, which has shed light on the evolution of the plant world, through the study of the botanical macroremains from the archaeological site. Thus, the ecological and cultural landscape of a part of the past Syrian Jazira has been reconstructed, by integrating the information coming from the archaeological features and the archaeobotanical remains.

The site of Shahr-i Sokhta is one of the most important archives of the past biodiversity of southeastern Iran where the interactions between plants, animals, and the human communities that lived in the settlement over about two millennia have been recorded. At the time of the first archaeological excavation of the site, in 1967, the diffuse presence of plant and animal remains in the archaeological deposit placed archaeologists in front of the need to widen the field of archaeological investigations, extending them to the natural sciences. The study of organic materials from this site allowed us to know the wood species used in the settlement for the daily life of the inhabitants, to reconstruct the ancient agriculture, and to identify the ancient textile production, and craft of the inhabitants of Sistan during the third millennium BC.

More information on this cycle of lectures, including abstracts in Italian and English for each class, is available at this webpage.