Blog Post #22: Investigating Human-Environment Relations through Archaeobotany with Alan Farahani

April is Earth Day month, so here at Peopling the Past we’re featuring researchers who study human-environment relations in the past and the role of the natural world in human history.

A key part of that human experience is our interaction with soils, water, vegetation, and animals, both large and microscopic, but unfortunately we only often tend to think about them when major catastrophes occur (climate change, extinctions, etc).  My archaeological research studies the relationship of people and plants in the past and present, especially in the form of agriculture. Plants have provided (and still provide!) people with food, shelter, medicine, clothing, and joy. After all, one of the things that made Bob Ross a popular painter was his catchphrase of drawing “happy little trees”. And thankfully, archaeologists have developed to techniques to recover plant remains to learn about their importance to people in the past.

The branch of archaeology that studies plant remains is known as “paleoethnobotany” (aka “archaeobotany”).  The name seems like a mouthful, but I promise that each of the elements of this word are warranted.  The first part, paleo, means “ancient”, the second, ethno, means “people”, and the last, botany, means “plants”.  That means that paleoethnobotany is the study of “ancient plants” to study “people”.

How do we know that people have been practicing agriculture in this area for the last three thousand years? During the course of archaeological survey and excavations at Zita from 2013 to 2016, the excavators, led by Ali Drine, Brett Kaufman, and Hans Barnard, collected many samples of archaeological sediment (aka dirt) for the purpose of finding plant remains.

In 2016 I processed those remains using a technique known as flotation — in short, a barrel with an internal mesh is filled with water, and then dirt is then immersed in that water. Carbonized (burnt) plant remains then float to the top of the barrel and are collected in a fine mesh at the end of a spout.  These burnt remains are almost always archaeological, and usually of seeds and wood.  They are carbonized because they came into contact with fire — either because of cooking or other kinds of plant processing.  We were able to ship these samples back to my laboratory, where I sorted and identified many identifiable plant remains with the help of graduate and undergraduate students.

These identified archaeological plant remains tell a story of climate, vegetation, economics, and even identity for Zita’s past inhabitants. The results show that different crops were grown at different times in Zita’s history, including wheat, barley, grapes, and olives, and their presence illustrates how successful the past community at Zita was at managing the local environmental and ecological challenges associated with food production. In addition, even the wood that communities at Zita were burning for warmth and for industry (more on that below) show evidence of change through time.

The issue of when these changes in agriculture and people’s relationship with the environment happened at Zita is an important one. Written sources and archaeological evidence tell us that the area around Zita came under Roman imperial control in the 2nd century BCE after protracted military conflict between the local Carthaginians and Romans in the Italian peninsula (think of the famous general Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants). After being incorporated into the Roman Empire, the people who farmed near Zita then generated the food that powered Roman cities: wheat, barley, wine, olive oil, and the famous fish paste, garum. And the Roman imprint is certainly visible at the site: there is a Roman-style forum alongside ceramic kilns and metal workshops.  So how did the new economic realities of life under the Romans affect what people in Zita were growing for food or burning for fuel?

The answer to that question will be available in a fuller account of the long-term human effects on the environment at Zita using paleoethnobotanical methods from its settlement, ca. 400 BCE, to its abandonment period ca. 200 CE (so stay tuned!). Even still, much more research is necessary to fully track how the past inhabitants at Zita managed their local environment, ecology, and agriculture.  Thankfully, there is a lot more of the site to excavate! But it is clear that without the methods provided by paleoethnobotany, many of these insights into the past would not have been possible. These plant remains bring us “down to earth” by connecting us with the actual crops that the people of Zita grew and that made everyday life possible. So the next time you bite into an apple and discard its seeds, think of the stories it might tell of you thousands of years in the future!