Contextualizing wild cereal harvesting at Middle Palaeolithic Ghar-e Boof in the southern Zagros

Abstract

A stratigraphic sequence from Ghar-e Boof, a cave site in Iran, covering a period of c. 80,000–30,000 BP and containing more than 20,000 seed and chaff remains, allows a detailed study of the use of annual seed species of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer groups and its evolution under the influence of changing environmental conditions. Taxonomic changes in the archaeobotanical assemblage and the stable carbon isotope data of pistachio support a considerable change in environmental conditions over the sequence from MIS 5a to MIS 3. The exceptional dominance of wild ancestors of modern crop species, including glume wheat and large-seeded legumes from Middle Palaeolithic layers AH VI (OSL ranges 72–81 ka BP), coincides broadly with the transition from MIS 5a to MIS 4. With the beginning of MIS 4 these taxa are strongly reduced, corresponding with a strong decrease in global CO2 concentrations and in the Δ13C values of Pistacia khinjuk/atlantica from the site. Wild glume wheat completely disappears after Middle Palaeolithic AH Vb and never reappears at the site. We hypothesize that the Middle Palaeolithic niche that allowed the harvesting and consumption of wild cereals and legumes ended with a destabilization of the vegetation in early MIS 4.