Ancient plant remains with special reference to buckthorn, Frangula alnus Mill., pyrenes from Dascyleum, Balıkesir, NW Turkey

Emel Oybak Dönmez,Recep Karadağ,Emine Torgan,Ali Akın Akyol,Kaan İren

doi:10.5586/asbp.3520

Abstract

Carbonized plant remains recovered from the ancient city Dascyleum (Daskyleion) in the province of Balıkesir in northwestern Turkey provide an outline of several phases of plant use in archaic, Hellenistic, and medieval times. At the study site, various crop plant remains of Near Eastern agriculture, including cereals (barley, Hordeum vulgare L. and bread/durum/rivet wheat, Triticum aestivum L. / T. durum Desf. / T. turgidum L.) and pulses [bitter vetch, Vicia ervilia (L.) Willd.; grass pea, Lathyrus sativus L. / L. cicera L.; fava bean, V. faba L.; and chickpea, Cicer arietinum L.] were found. Drupaceous fruits and pyrenes of buckthorn (Frangula alnus Mill.) were also found, probably representing dyes and/or medicines used by the inhabitants of the mound.Archaeometrical analyses of the ancient buckthorn pyrenes by high performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detector (HPLC-PDA) provide chemical evidence for traces of ancient mordants remaining until the present day.Some of the pulse seed remains retrieved from the medieval layers at the study site were found to have been infested by bruchid beetles (Bruchidae).

Highlights

The acropolis of Dascyleum (Daskyleion), situated on Hisartepe Höyük, lies south of the Marmara Sea and Manyas Lake (Kuş Lake), near Ergili village of Bandırma, in Balıkesir Province in northwestern Turkey (Fig. 1a,b)
The present study focuses on the archaeometrical analyses of ancient buckthorn pyrenes from the medieval layers of the site by high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detector (HPLC-PDA), with the aim of identifying ancient mordants
From the present archaeobotanical results, it may be suggested that agricultural activities with a spectrum of Near Eastern crops and pulses continued during the historical periods at Dascyleum

Summary

Introduction

The acropolis of Dascyleum (Daskyleion), situated on Hisartepe Höyük, lies south of the Marmara Sea and Manyas Lake (Kuş Lake), near Ergili village of Bandırma, in Balıkesir Province in northwestern Turkey (Fig. 1a,b). The study site was first identified by Kurt Bittel in 1952 [1]. Archaeological excavations started in 1954 under the direction of Ekrem Akurgal and lasted until 1959 [2,3]. The site has been excavated under the direction of Kaan İren since 2009 [5]. The tumuli (ancient burial mounds) around Manyas Lake correspond to the burials of Lydian, Persian, Macedonian, and local elites. Archaeometrical studies by Akyol et al [6] and Özdemir et al [7] have been conducted at one of these tumuli, called the Koru tumulus, near Dascyleum

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Conclusion