Phytoliths as a tool for investigations of agricultural origins and dispersals around the world

Abstract

28Agricultural origins and dispersals are subjects of fundamental importance to archaeology as 29 well as many other scholarly disciplines. These investigations are world-wide in scope and 30 require significant amounts of paleobotanical data attesting to the exploitation of wild 31 progenitors of crop plants and subsequent domestication and spread. Accordingly, for the past 32 few decades the development of methods for identifying the remains of wild and domesticated 33 plant species has been a focus of paleo-ethnobotany. Phytolith analysis has increasingly taken its 34 place as an important independent contributor of data in all areas of the globe, and the volume of 35 literature on the subject is now both very substantial and disseminated in a range of international 36 journals. In this paper, experts who have carried out the hands-on work review the utility and 37 importance of phytolith analysis in documenting the domestication and dispersals of crop plants 38 around the world. It will serve as an important resource both to paleo-ethnobotanists and other 39 scholars interested in the development and spread of agriculture. 40

Dating rice remains through phytolith carbon-14 study reveals domestication at the beginning of the Holocene

“…Although rice spikelet bases are considered key to documenting rice domestication (3), few of these were well-preserved at the site because of the acidic soil conditions. However, rice bulliform cell phytoliths, derived from the leaves, are highly resistant to decomposition, and their morphological characteristics can be used as a reliable proxy for domestication (24,29,30). Identification criteria include the number of fish-scale decorations on the lateral side of rice bulliform phytolith (Fig.…”

Back to the Grindstone? The Archaeological Potential of Grinding-Stone Studies in Africa with Reference to Contemporary Grinding Practices in Marakwet, Northwest Kenya

“…Unfortunately, the coarseness of the lithic material that grinding-stones are often made from makes microscopic use-wear analysis challenging (Rowan and Ebeling 2008, p. 7). Such coarse-grained stone is amenable to residue and trace analysis, though, and progress made in isolating and identifying phytoliths and starch grains from grinding-stone tools found in archaeological contexts is encouraging (Ball et al 2016;Garciá-Granero et al 2017;Lucarini et al 2016;Mercader 2009;Radomski and Neumann 2011). Systematic sampling and analysis of sediments and trace residues from archaeological contexts will further expand understandings of processing activities in Africa through time.…”

Plant use from the grinding stones’ viewpoint: Phytolith analyses from Aeneolithic Monjukli Depe, Turkmenistan

“…The highest amount was around 1% in the samples around Stone 4. Ball et al (2016) mention "Differentiating crop phytoliths from their Panicoid weedy wild relatives in archaeological contexts can present challenges due to similarities of identifiable Panicoid husk morphotypes, and large pristine sheets of identifiable multicellular aggregations that identification criteria (…) are, in part, based on are sometimes rare.". Phytoliths common to the dicot family are in general very few, with a mean of 4% for all samples.…”