Discovering Plum, Watermelon and Grape Cultivars Founded in a Middle Age Site of Sassari (Sardinia, Italy) through a Computer Image Analysis Approach

Abstract

The discovery of several waterlogged plant remains in a Middle Ages context (1330–1360 AD) in Sassari (Sardinia, Italy) enabled the characterisation of archaeological plum fruit stones and watermelon and grape seeds through computer image analysis. Digital seed/endocarp images were acquired by a flatbed scanner and processed and analysed by applying computerised image analysis techniques. The morphometric data were statistically elaborated using stepwise linear discriminant analysis (LDA), allowing comparisons among archaeological remains, wild populations and autochthonous cultivars. Archaeological samples of plum were compared with 21 autochthonous cultivars of Prunus domestica from Sardinia, while archaeological watermelon seeds were compared with 36 seed lots of Citrullus from Europe, Africa and Asia. Moreover, archaeological grape seeds were compared with 51 autochthonous traditional cultivars of V. vinifera subsp. vinifera from Sardinia, 16 cultivars from Tuscany, 6 cultivars from Liguria, and 8 cultivars from Catalonia (Spain). Archaeological plum remains showed morphological affinity with five cultivars of Sardinia. Seed features of the archaeological watermelon remains demonstrated affiliation with a proper sweet dessert watermelon, Citrullus lanatus, and similarity with some Sardinian cultivars. Regarding the archaeological remains of grape, morphometric comparisons showed a high similarity with autochthonous cultivars from Catalonia and Liguria. This study provides new information about ancient fruit cultivated and consumed during the Middle Ages in Sardinia.

Morphological Characterization of Fossil Vitis L. Seeds from the Gelasian of Italy by Seed Image Analysis

“…Recent studies, that have employed a morphometric seed image analysis, proved to be effective in distinguishing wild grapes from domestic ones in both modern and archaeological seeds [31,[33][34][35][36]51,52]. The same methodology was extended beyond mere species identification, aiming to differentiate groups of domestic grape varieties or specific wild grape populations [24][25][26]28,30,31,[33][34][35][36][53][54][55][56].…”