Pollen Core Research Articles

The Establishment of the Agricultural Landscape of Central Sicily Between the Middle Neolithic and the Beginning of the Iron Age

The possible co-variation of human occupation and vegetation from the Middle Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age (7.5–2.8 ka BP) in Central Sicily in the context of the central Mediterranean between Middle and Late Holocene are analysed in this paper to provide new insights on Sicilian prehistoric demography. The demographic and economic trends during these millennia were reconstructed using archaeological, Accelerator Mass Spectrometry 14C dates, palynological, archaeobotanical, and zooarchaeological data from the northern, central, and southern sectors of Central Sicily through a diachronic comparison with variation in Arboreal Pollen, Anthropogenic Pollen Indicators, Olea-Juglans-Castanea pollen, microcharcoals, and Sporormiella from four pollen cores from sites in different ecosystems. A very significant spread of farming activities was found at the end of the Neolithic, together with an apparent demographic gap during the Middle Copper Age, and the emergence of agricultural landscapes at the end of the Copper Age associated with a striking increase in population. A combination of cultural and climatic changes during the late phase of the Bronze Age resulted in a subsequent overall decrease in population.

Herbivore enamel carbon and oxygen isotopes demonstrate both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals exploited similar habitats in the Zagros Mountains

ABSTRACTThe extinction of Neanderthal populations has been attributed to the onset of cold and dry climatic conditions during Marine Isotope Stage 3 or their competition with anatomically modern humans for large game resources. However, decoupling climate from competition has long proved difficult. Loess sequences and pollen cores provide regional‐scale environmental information but are less well‐suited to providing local‐scale habitat information contemporaneous with hominin habitation of occupation sites. The relationship between climate and resource availability is particularly unknown in the Zagros mountain range where archaeological evidence for both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens occupation is documented. Here, we analyse carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) stable isotopes measured from herbivore tooth enamel carbonates recovered from the Neanderthal and modern human occupation sites of Bawa Yawan Rockshelter and Shanidar Cave to trace local‐scale floral biome dynamics and climate conditions that influence the distribution and availability of large prey targeted by both hominin species. Shared isotopic composition of herbivorous fauna, largely represented by wild goats, from both sites spanning Neanderthal and Homo sapiens occupation indicate both hominin species exploited similar habitats during climatically similar phases.

Vegetation History and Estuarine Ecology of the Texas Gulf Coastal Plain in Relation to Climate and Sea-Level Changes According to Three Pollen Cores

The vegetation history of the Texas Gulf Coastal Plain in the Holocene is considered according to pollen evidence from three coring sites where both terrestrial and marine ecology are reconstructed. These pollen sites record oscillations in the limit of the Southeastern US Forest zone in relation to climate changes, with a major, southward migration of the forest limit and expansion of the range limit of Betula nigra being recorded in the 6th millennium BP and a northward migration in the 4th millennium BP. The appearance of Rhizophora pollen also indicates increased tropical influence in the Middle Holocene. Moreover, changes in the salinity profiles of estuaries are reconstructed in relation to broader coastal environmental changes, such as sea-level oscillations and the formation of barrier islands, with a major sea-level transgression phase being recorded in the 4th millennium BP and still-stand conditions after the 3rd millennium BP. These vegetation changes are finally compared to occupational evidence of prehistoric humans in the Central Texas Gulf Coastal Plain region in relation to ecological factors. Here, human occupation of the coastal zone is correlated with afforestation, the proliferation of pecan and the emergence of low-salinity estuaries.

ПАНДЕМИИ ПОЗДНЕЙ АНТИЧНОСТИ

The article deals with the problem of the environmental factors impact on large-scale historical processes. As a rule, historians use political, social and economic factors while explaining such phenomena as the crisis and decline of the Roman empire. This choice is largely determined by the nature of the available sources and the tradition of their interpretation. With the development of archeology in the mid-second half of the XX century, the volume of sources available to researchers has increased significantly. They included not only objects of material culture, but also human remains, plant pollen and ice cores. These data allow us to obtain reliable information about the ecology of a particular region in a particular era. The interpretation of these data indicates that between the second half of the 2 century and the middle of the 6 century, the climate in the ancient Mediterranean experienced a number of unfavorable changes. The average temperature of the entire region has become several degrees lower, the amount of precipitation and harvests has changed. Famine forced the masses of people to abandon their lands and go to the cities in search of food. These disasters coincided with several devastating waves of epidemics that swept around the world. The most devastating of them was the so-called “Justinian plague”, which killed at least 100 million people. The regions with a high level of urbanization and a large trade and craft population suffered the most from the disease. There was a depopulation of entire regions, a significant degradation of the economy and society. The epidemic lasted for almost 200 years and when the disease weakened, the restoration of society took place on a completely different basis compared to the previous era. The changes that took place were large-scale and caused the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The current situation, when the coronavirus pandemic again threatens the stability of the modern world order, gives additional relevance to the chosen topic.

Did long‐term fire control the coniferous boreal forest composition of the northern Ural region (Komi Republic, Russia)?

AbstractAimDocumenting past vegetation dynamics and fire‐vegetation relationships at a regional scale is necessary to understand the mechanisms that control the functioning of the boreal forest, which is particularly sensitive to climate change. The objective of this study is to document these interactions in the Komi Republic during the Holocene.LocationYaksha, Vychegda river basin, Republic of Komi, Russia.TaxonPlantae, gymnosperms, angiosperms.MethodsTwo palaeoecological approaches are combined, based (1) on pollen (this study) and charcoal analysis (recomputed from our previous analysis) applied to cores from two peatlands and (2) on a REVEALS model (a part of the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm “LRA”) applied to six regional pollen cores in order to obtain a regional estimate of vegetation cover during the Holocene.ResultsThe pollen diagram produced locally from Yaksha was compared with the regional vegetation cover determined by REVEALS. Taxa such as Abies sp. and Pinus spp. showed differences between the two approaches, but vegetation signals remain qualitatively consistent. From 10,000 to 6,000 cal. yr BP, the forest was mainly a light taiga (composed of Pinus sylvestris and Betula spp.) and low fire activity was recorded. From 6,000 to 3,500 cal. yr BP, a dark taiga (composed of Picea spp., Abies sibirica and Pinus sibirica) was established due to favourable climatic conditions, despite higher fire activity. From 3,500 cal. yr BP onwards, the continuous increase in fire activity allowed for a gradual return of light taiga, Betula spp., likely reinforced by human activities. The dynamics of Picea spp. and Abies sp. were asynchronous between the sites. For Picea spp., the hypothesis of local inter‐site expansion distributed along stream corridors is supported by the data. For Abies sp., a bias in REVEALS, and in climate cooling may explain disparities between sites.Main conclusionsWe found evidence that in the early and mid‐Holocene, vegetation dynamics were probably more influenced by climate, as fire activity was low. During the late Holocene, fire activity and geomorphology, eventually augmented by human activities, increased in influence on vegetation dynamics and led to the predominance of the light taiga forest up to the present.

Holocene land cover and population dynamics in Southern France

This paper describes long-term changes in human population and vegetation cover in southern France, using summed radiocarbon probability distributions and site count data as population proxies and information from fossil pollen cores as a proxy for past land cover. Southern France is particularly well-suited to this type of study as a result of previous programmes of intensive survey work and excavation in advance of large-scale construction. These make it possible to calibrate the larger scale occupation patterns in the light of the visibility issues created by the burial of archaeological sites beneath alluvial sediments. For purposes of analysis, the region was divided into three biogeographical zones (BGZ), going from the Mediterranean coast to the middle Rhône valley (MRV). All the different population proxies in a given zone show broadly similar patterns of fluctuation, though with varying levels of resolution. The long-term patterns in the different zones all show significant differences from the overall regional pattern, but this is especially the case for the non-Mediterranean middle Rhône area. Cluster analysis of pollen samples has been carried out to identify the main regional land cover types through the Holocene, which are increasingly dominated by open types over time. A variety of other pollen indicators show evidence of increasing human impact through time. Measures of human impact correlate strongly with the population proxies. A series of thresholds are identified in the population–human impact trajectory that are related to other changes in the cultural sequence. The lack of independent climate data for the region means that its impact cannot currently be assessed with confidence. However, for the later periods, it is clear that the incorporation of southern France into larger regional systems played a major role in accounting for changes in land cover and settlement.

Long-term trends of land use and demography in Greece: A comparative study

This paper offers a comparative study of land use and demographic development in northern and southern Greece from the Neolithic to the Byzantine period. Results from summed probability densities (SPD) of archaeological radiocarbon dates and settlement numbers derived from archaeological site surveys are combined with results from cluster-based analysis of published pollen core assemblages to offer an integrated view of human pressure on the Greek landscape through time. We demonstrate that SPDs offer a useful approach to outline differences between regions and a useful complement to archaeological site surveys, evaluated here especially for the onset of the Neolithic and for the Final Neolithic (FN)/Early Bronze Age (EBA) transition. Pollen analysis highlight differences in vegetation between the two sub-regions, but also several parallel changes. The comparison of land cover dynamics between two sub-regions of Greece further demonstrates the significance of the bioclimatic conditions of core locations and that apparent oppositions between regions may in fact be two sides of the same coin in terms of socio-ecological trajectories. We also assess the balance between anthropogenic and climate-related impacts on vegetation and suggest that climatic variability was as an important factor for vegetation regrowth. Finally, our evidence suggests that the impact of humans on land cover is amplified from the Late Bronze Age (LBA) onwards as more extensive herding and agricultural practices are introduced.

Ancient changes in the African tropics

Paleoecology Long-term records of past vegetation change are key to understanding how climate change affects ecosystems, but data are scarce—especially in highly biodiverse regions in the tropics. Lezine et al. present a detailed 90,000-year pollen core from an upland crater-lake site in the west African tropical montane forest, which is important from conservation and biogeographic standpoints. The upper treeline moved in response to climate change during the Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods, whereas the lower limit of the Afromontane forest was stable. The constituent species of the forest also changed. This record resolves debates concerning the biogeographic history of Afromontane vegetation. Science , this issue p. [177][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aav6821

A 90,000-year record of Afromontane forest responses to climate change.

Pollen records from African highlands are scarce; hence, the paleoecology of the Afromontane forest and its responses to glacial cycles are poorly known. Lake Bambili (Cameroon) provides a record of vegetation changes in the tropical mountains of Africa over the past 90,000 years, with high temporal resolution. Pollen data and biome reconstructions show a diverging response of forests to climate changes; the upper tree line was extremely unstable, shifting substantially in response to glacial-interglacial climate alternation, whereas the transition between the montane and lowland forests remained remarkably stable. Such ecological instability may have had a critical influence on species richness in the Afromontane forests.

Comparing pollen and archaeobotanical data for Chalcolithic cereal agriculture at Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Establishing agricultural activity using pollen analysis is one of the prime challenges of a palaeoecological investigation. Here we report combined pollen and archaeobotanical data originating from a waterlogged off-site organic-rich fill radiocarbon dated to ∼8 ka Cal BP located between the two occupation mounds at Neolithic-Chalcolithic Çatalhöyük, south central Turkey in order to investigate the record of Early Chalcolithic agricultural activity. Pollen results indicate extremely high abundances of Cerealia-type pollen (30->70%) and critical measurements of these show them to be Triticum-type, Avena/Triticum-type, Secale-type and Hordeum-type. Pollen data are also compared with archaeobotanical data retrieved from the same sediment matrix and show high abundances of Triticum and Hordeum grains, awns, spikelet forks and glume bases. Archaeobotanical and pollen data are therefore unequivocal in showing the presence of cereals throughout the period of deposition, and although preservation of archaeobotanical cereal plant remains is typically poor, the presence of glume wheats, including emmer/‘New Type’ wheat and domesticated barley, is consistent with cereal data from on-site excavation deposits at Çatalhöyük. Pollen data also include high occurrences of clusters of Cerealia-type, Chenopodiaceae, Poaceae and Asteraceae and point to local deposition that is best explained as the anthers being deposited at the coring site attached to cereal or other herbaceous waste material. Archaeobotanical data in addition to very high percentage values of individual Cerealia-type pollen grains and clusters of Cerealia-type pollen and other non-arboreal pollen types suggest that the margins of the Çatalhöyük site were probably used for early stage crop processing activities as well as a waste site. Although radiocarbon dating of this organic-rich fill suggests that it was deposited over a very short time period (∼300 years) during the Early Chalcolithic, the data highlight the importance of adopting complementary palynological and archaeobotanical approaches in order to better understand the taphonomy of micro and macrofossil deposits associated with archaeological sites. While more distant, regional pollen sites in south-central Anatolia have difficulty registering Neolithic-Chalcolithic cereal cultivation, this study shows that if a pollen core site is located too close to an archaeological site, then pollen assemblages can be overwhelmed and ‘swamped’ by the products of local cereal processing and the inclusion of domestic waste material thus rendering it difficult to elucidate meaningful data on local agricultural activity.

Physical and Biochemical Characterization of Chemically Treated Pollen Shells for Potential Use in Oral Delivery of Therapeutics

Allergen-free pollen shells obtained from natural pollen grains have recently attracted attention as microcapsules for oral therapeutic delivery. We have recently developed a chemical treatment method that enables successful retrieval of hollow pollen shells from diverse species. A comprehensive characterization is critical to characterize the effects of chemical treatment which will not only benchmark the pollen treatment process but can also lay the foundation of quality control procedures to check allergen-removal efficiency during pollen treatment. Therefore, in this study, we followed the effects of chemical treatment on 4 different pollen species using electron microscopy, elemental analysis, gel electrophoresis, confocal microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. These analyses revealed that acetone treatment removed lipids from the pollen surface. Phosphoric acid treatment removed proteins and nucleic acids from the pollen core and transformed esters into carboxylic acids. Potassium hydroxide hydrolysis changed carbohydrate composition of the pollen wall. Chemically treated pollen shells exhibited hydroxyl and carboxyl functional groups on their surface. Overall, we propose that confocal microscopy could be used as a rapid scanning technique to visualize the removal of biomolecules, whereas Fourier-transform infrared combined with gel electrophoresis could be used as a more objective approach for analysis and benchmarking.

A chemical treatment method for obtaining clean and intact pollen shells of different species.

Pollen grains and plant spores have emerged as a novel biomaterial for a broad range of applications including oral drug and vaccine delivery, catalyst support, and removal of heavy metals. However, before pollens can be used, their intrinsic biomolecules, which occupy a large part of the pollen inner cavity must be removed not only to create empty space but because they have potential to cause allergies when used in vivo. These intrinsic materials in the pollen core can be extracted through a chemical treatment to generate clean pollen shells. The commonly used method involves a series of sequential treatments with organic solvents, alkalis, and acids to remove the native pollen biomolecules. This method, though successful for treating lycopodium (Lycopodium clavatum) spores, fails for other species of pollens such as common ragweed (Ambrosia elatior) and thus prevents widespread investigation of different pollens. Herein, we report a new chemical treatment for obtaining clean pollen shells from multiple plant species. This new method involves sequential treatment with acetone, phosphoric acid, and potassium hydroxide. Scanning electron micrographs and protein quantification have shown that the new method can successfully produce clean, intact, and hollow shells from many pollen species including ragweed, sunflower, black alder, and lamb's quarters. These results demonstrate the broad applicability of this method to clean pollens of different species, and paves the way to start investigating them for various applications.

Demography and climate in Late Eneolithic Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania: Multiproxy evidence and pollen-based regional corroboration

Attempts to correlate macro-scale climate dynamics with anomalies in local and regional archaeological data sets should account for differences in geographic scale and effect size. Using the modern analogue technique, this paper reconstructs temperature, precipitation, and growing degree-day trends in Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania from a set of 20 pollen cores in order to explicate the regional impact of the 6.0–5.0ka BP rapid climate change interval observed in the GISP2 K+ glacio-chemical sequence. Results are compared against a model of regional demographic development covering the time span of 6000–3000BCE. This study indicates that, while macro-scale trends are discernible in Eastern Europe, climatic instability during the fourth millennium BCE was regionally variable and resultant demographic responses were highly targeted and heterogeneous in nature. A period of cooling ca. 3825–3650calBCE resulted in the fracturing of Eneolithic complexes in Romania and generally spurred adaptation to more mobile systems of settlement and subsistence. However, a contemporaneous alternative response involved large-scale migrations to peripheral regions, including the establishment of the Tripolye giant-settlements in Central Ukraine. The methods used illustrate the need for obtaining more proximate confirmation when applying large-scale climate processes to explanations of local and regional archaeological contexts.

A Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm and pedoanthracological data reveal Late Holocene woodland history in the lowlands of the NE Czech Republic

We aim to obtain composition of the regional vegetation from the pollen record in the high mountains, to use it in the interpretation of the pollen record from the lowlands via a Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA), and to then compare the pedoanthracological data with the LRA result based on dissimilarity coefficient.We used five pollen sequences from summits of the Eastern Sudetes (NE Czech Republic), and two pollen cores were analysed in the adjacent Litovelské Pomoraví lowlands. The same lowland woodland was sampled in six pedoanthracological sections. All records cover the Late Holocene period.Site-to-site variability of the pollen spectra from the mountains was found to be low. Regional vegetation inferred from shallowest pollen samples corresponds to present-day vegetation inferred from forestry data. Mountain sites represent regional components and can substitute for large sites in an LRA.Mean LRA estimates were more similar to mean charcoal spectra than they were to mean pollen percentages. LRA estimates of Quercus and Fraxinus in the lowlands match the pedoanthracological evidence regarding individual sites. LRA estimates and charcoal spectra both show that the main dominant (>50%) in the woodland studied was Quercus.Mismatching evidence resided in a small number of the determined charcoals and there were differences between some assumptions of the LRA and the real-world conditions. Alnus and Tilia produced higher pollen signals on the expanse of Fagus and Abies, which were recorded by charcoals within the Relevant Source Area of Pollen (RSAP), which varied from a 35 to a 255meter radius, and ranged with the value from forest hollows.Comparability of LRA vegetation estimates and charcoal percentages is still at the level of complementary evidence. However, a quantitative approach shifts the character to substitutable evidence, with potential to provide the same vegetation estimates by both proxies.

On-site data cast doubts on the hypothesis of shifting cultivation in the late Neolithic (c. 4300–2400 cal. BC): Landscape management as an alternative paradigm

This article brings together in a comprehensive way, and for the first time, on- and off-site palaeoenvironmental data from the area of the Central European lake dwellings (a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site since 2011). The types of data considered are as follows: high-resolution off-site pollen cores, including micro-charcoal counts, and on-site data, including botanical macro- and micro-remains, hand-collected animal bones, remains of microfauna, and data on woodland management (dendrotypology). The period considered is the late Neolithic (c. 4300–2400 cal. BC). For this period, especially for its earlier phases, discussions of land-use patterns are contradictory. Based on off-site data, slash-and-burn – as known from tropical regions – is thought to be the only possible way to cultivate the land. On-site data however show a completely different picture: all indications point to the permanent cultivation of cereals ( Triticum spp., Hordeum vulgare), pea ( Pisum sativum), flax ( Linum usitatissimum) and opium-poppy ( Papaver somniferum). Cycles of landscape use are traceable, including coppicing and moving around the landscape with animal herds. Archaeobiological studies further indicate also that hunting and gathering were an important component and that the landscape was manipulated accordingly. Late Neolithic land-use systems also included the use of fire as a tool for opening up the landscape. Here we argue that bringing together all the types of palaeoenvironmental proxies in an integrative way allows us to draw a more comprehensive and reliable picture of the land-use systems in the late Neolithic than had been reconstructed previously largely on the basis of off-site data.

Managed agroforests, swiddening, and the introduction of pigs in Pohnpei, Micronesia: Phytolith evidence from an anthropogenic landscape

Abstract Phytolith analysis is increasingly contributing to archaeological studies, especially in the context of agriculture in tropical regions. Plant remains from archaeological sites provide key information on such topics as site function, settlement, past dietary patterns, migrations, and landscape formation. However, in the humid tropics, where good preservation of organic materials is uncommon, identifiable plant macroremains are relatively rare. The inorganic nature of phytoliths makes them a useful tool in Pacific environments. In this study, we analyze phytolith remains from garden features in archaeological context from a western Pacific volcanic island, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. To understand the manipulation of floral environments, especially agricultural practices, we examine hypotheses regarding how agricultural landscapes were impacted by changes in social and economic systems during the island's late prehistoric and early historic periods; these changes include elaboration of chiefly feasting and the introduction of pigs in the 19th century. Previous research on Pohnpei (e.g. Haun, 1984; Ayres and Haun, 1985, 1990; Ayres et al., 2009; Athens and Stevenson, 2012) has examined Pohnpeian agriculture and sociopolitical change through the study of archaeological features and pollen cores. This project is one of the first, to our knowledge, to examine phytolith data from archaeological contexts on the island. Samples from archaeological gardening contexts document how agricultural landscape shows a response to swiddening, landscape succession patterns, and introduced animals within the managed agroforest. However, phytolith analysis alone is not sufficient and must be used in conjunction with other archaeological data in hypothesis testing.

Rapid vegetation shifts in the Uinta Mountains (Utah and Wyoming, USA) during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene

Abstract The Uinta Mountains lie along an important transition between major climate regimes and thus are sensitive to major climatic changes and consequent vegetation shifts. Two pollen cores from montane Uinta sites on the Utah–Wyoming border (Marsh Lake Bog and Camp Bog, respectively) were used to analyze vegetation shifts from the latest Pleistocene through the Holocene. The records correspond with those from adjacent portions of the Rocky Mountains, all demonstrating a major shift from alpine steppe to open spruce parkland at ~ 11,700–11,200 cal yr BP. A second major shift to lodgepole pine forest began at ~ 8400 cal yr BP at Marsh Lake Bog and could have been a direct response of the dominant species to warmer conditions and/or the result of subtle changes in the competitive hierarchy of tree species near a sensitive ecotone. The difference in the rate and full expression of lodgepole forest development (taking nearly 2000 years longer at Camp Bog) was probably due to a set of complex and local factors, such as cold air drainage and landscape position. Lodgepole pine forest persisted throughout the late Holocene and appears to be the long-term regional “climax” forest, rather than a seral habitat. Fire does not appear to have triggered the middle Holocene shift from spruce-dominated to lodgepole pine-dominated forests in this area but may have contributed to its long-term persistence to the present day.

Montane bias in lowland Amazonian peatlands: Plant assembly on heterogeneous landscapes and potential significance to palynological inference

Abstract Past temperature changes in tropical mountain regions are commonly inferred from vertical elevational shifts of montane indicator taxa in the palynological record. However temperature is one of several abiotic factors driving the low-elevational limits of species and many montane taxa can occur in warmer lowlands by tracking appropriate habitat types, especially highly flooded wetlands. In this paper we explore ways in which lowland habitat heterogeneity might introduce error into paleo-temperature reconstructions, based on field data of seven modern peatland vegetation communities in the southern Peruvian Amazon (~ 200 masl). Peat-rich substrates are common edaphic transitions in pollen cores and provide detailed records of past vegetation change. The data show that indicators of modern peatlands include genera with montane as well as lowland distributions, while indicators of surrounding forests on mineral substrates have predominantly lowland distributions. Based on family-level analyses we find that modern peatland vegetation communities have taxonomic compositions appearing to be 389 m to 1557 m (mean = 1050 ± 391 m) above their actual elevations due to a high abundance and number of families with high elevation optima. We interpret the relatively higher prevalence of montane elements in modern peatlands as habitat tracking of a conserved montane niche on heterogeneous lowland landscapes. We suggest that both high moisture availability and stressful edaphic conditions of peatland habitat may explain the montane bias observed. To the extent that fossilization provides a better record of past vegetation that occurred proximate to the site of deposition, we suggest that habitat tracking of montane elements may introduce a cool bias in lowland paleo-temperature reconstructions based on pollen proxies.

Multi-Proxy Analysis of Plant use at Formative Period Los Naranjos, Honduras

Paleoethnobotanical analyses of samples excavated at Los Naranjos, Honduras, provide an unprecedented record of the diversity of plants used at an early center with monumental architecture and sculpture dating between 1000 and 500 B.C. and contribute to understandings of early village life in Mesoamerica. Los Naranjos is the major site adjacent to Lake Yojoa, where analysis of an important pollen core suggests very early clearing of the landscape and shifts in the relative prevalence of certain plants over time, including increases in maize. Our results from starch grain, phytolith, and macrobotanical analysis complicate interpretation of previous pollen core dates, suggesting that maize was not as central as expected to the early inhabitants of the settlement. Moreover, with identification of macrobotanical remains recovered from flotation of sediments and extraction of microbotanical remains from adhering sediments and the surfaces of obsidian tools, we can compare the potential of each analysis in interpretations of plant use. No single method would have allowed recovery and identification of all the plants documented across sample types. The presence of botanical residues on the obsidian tools provides direct evidence of processing. Even in the small sample analyzed, we can recognize tools used exclusively for culinary processing, tools used only for non-culinary tasks, and multi-purpose tools.

Environmental Change Since the Woodland Period in the Mid-Ohio Valley: Results from Patton Bog Sediment Core Palynological Analyses

Palynological analyses of sediment cores from Patton Bog in southeastern Ohio recorded environmental changes from ca. 1000 B.C. to the present, representing the first pollen core analyzed from this region. Pollen data show an increase in prairie species, implying periodic expansion of grassland environments during the Woodland period coeval with the initial collection and eventual domestication of Eastern Agricultural Complex seeds. It is suggested that these environmental changes influenced human decisions concerning plant domestication and diet in the mid-Ohio Valley.