Archaeology and Social Processes (IH, CCHS)

The regions of Alava, Navarra and Baja Navarra have been surveyed in order to collect data relating the traditional cultivation of emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) known as ezkandia in the area. This species has already disappeared but interviews to people who grew it up to 1960 have been conducted in order to better understand its uses. The main use of emmer in this area was for animal feeding.

Charred parenchymous tissue was recovered from Byzantine levels at the site of Sparta, Greece. On examination, using morphological and histological characteristics it was identified as being turnip, Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera (Metzg.) Sinsk. This discovery is of great significance in the study of the site, and also of Byzantine economy.

The women pottery-makers in the Gzaua tribe (Chefchaouen,
NW Morocco), who are part of the Berber pottery tradition of the north of the Mahgreb, still hiake ceramics with very archaic techniques. Pottery is constructed by slab building, open fired and exchanged in very restricted geographical area. The study of the techniques and of the social organization of production and use represents a relevant reference for the specialists in pottery technology and, in general, for those interested in the topic of craft specialization.

In the Jebala region, NW of Morocco, the making of recipients of dung from cows or/and clay (tonna and tabtoba) was common in the past. These recipients were used for stocking cereals and their dry products, for feeding the livestock, or for transporting the céréals to the rotative mill. The élaboration of these objects, which dissapeared 20 or 30 years ago, represented a general technical knowledge which was carried out by all the women in the région, in order to satisfy their domestic needs.

Ethnoarchaeobotanical data on cereal cultivation (agrarian practices and tasks) on the athlantic façade of the Basque Country are here presented. Ethnographic data are an important element to justify the development of cereal agriculture during prehistoric times in the area.

In the Jebala region, NW of Morocco, the making of recipients of dung from cows or/and clay (tonna and tabtoba) was common in the past. These recipients were used for stocking cereals and other dry products, for feeding the livestock, or for transporting the cereals to the rotative mill. The elaboration of these objects, which dissapeared 20 or 30 years ago, represented a general technical knowledge which was carried out by all the women in the région, in order to satisfy their domestic needs.

The intensification in the use of plants is one of the more significant characteristics of the Neolithic economy. In this paper, this topic is considered by means of the archaeobotanical analysis of plant charred remains and the use-wear analysis of lithic tools from the Neolithic levels of Los Murciélagos cave (Zuheros, Córdoba). The cultivation of diferent types of wheats (T. monococcum, T. dicoccum, T. aestivum, T. durum) and barley (Hordeum sativum) and the harvesting of acorns (Quercus sp.) and wild olives (Olea europaea ssp, oleaster) is attested. The technical processes on plants are reconstructed resorting to ethnographic information, experimentation and use-wear analysis of stone tools. During the Neolithic period, at this site, sickles were made inserting lithic elements obliquely in curved shafts. No lithic tool used for technological activities on plants (basketry,
ropes, etc.) was recognized. This is probably due to the development of most of these technical activities without tools or with wooden tools, and, perhaps, to the fact that some plant collecting activities (i.e. Phragmites)could had been carried out with the same sickles used for harvesting cereals.

The spread of agriculture in the Iberian Peninsula is documented from at least ca. 5600–5500 BC, although botanical data are absent or very limited for large areas. Archaeobotanical information shows from the beginning an imported agrarian system with a great diversity of crops: hulled and naked wheats and barleys, legumes such as pea, lentil, fava bean, vetches and grass peas, flax and poppy. This diversity of plants with different requirements, processing and uses, implies that the first farmers quickly imported or acquired a wide range of agrarian knowledge. Regional and inter-site agrarian differences are discussed in relation to factors like ecology, culture, use of the cultivated plants and management of the risk of crop failure. The adoption of farming resulted in significant ecological, economic, dietary, and social changes for the Neolithic people of Iberia.

This paper focuses on the study of prehistoric agriculture through the analysis of plant remains from archaeological sites. The first part is devoted to the analysis of the different types of macro remains likely to appear in the archaeological record as well as to their conservation. Recovery techniques such as flotation are also included. The second part gives an introduction to the origins of agriculture and its expansion through Europe including a brief discussion about the earliest data available for the Iberian Peninsula. The paper finishes with a revision of the interpretative models currently used in the reconstruction of agrarian practices and crop processing.

Abstract: Ethnographic research carried out in different areas of Spain and Morocco where hulled wheats are still cultivated under traditional methods, has allowed to study the range of operations involved in their processing. This paper focuses on some post-harvest procedures, e.g. threshing, parching and dehusking. The controversial issue of parching is analyzed in detailed through the examination of both literary sources and ethnographic evidence.