Investigating the Ecology, Composition and Exploitability of Wild Cereal Habitats in Relation to Agricultural Origins in the Near East

2026-07-22

The project combines analyses on the taxonomic composition, isotopic signature, economic exploitability and functional ecology of wild cereal habitats in the Near East, which will create a data basis that allows to more reliably trace the origins of arable weeds and the development of subsistence strategies at the dawn of agricultural societies. During the past decades, archaeobotanical research on early cultivation has strongly focused on the wild cereals, their experimental cultivation, and on identifying arable weeds in archaeobotanical assemblages for tracing the first cultivation activities. However, little is known about the origins of arable weeds and their association with unmanaged wild cereal habitats, putting doubt on their reliability to indicate the beginnings of cultivation. In addition, medium- and large-seeded wild grasses that grow together with wild cereals in modern stands occur abundantly at Early Neolithic sites. Reconstructing subsistence developments during the Neolithic transition must therefore consider the exploited “non-cereal” grasses more thoroughly. The project aims to address these research gaps by (1) investigating the association of potential arable weeds with unmanaged wild cereal habitats, (2) analyse the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of the different grass taxa in order to test whether these signatures significantly differ between habitats and (3) test the harvesting efficiency of medium- to large-seeded wild grasses in relation to the wild cereals. The harvesting experiments will also show whether unwanted “weed seeds” become incorporated into harvests from unmanaged stands, falsely indicating cultivation activities. Finally, we will combine these investigations with an analysis of the functional traits of the recorded species, linking taxonomic and structural variability to environmental gradients.

United Kingdom (UK)

2026-02-01