Marta Mariotti Lippi

Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing

European Paleolithic subsistence is assumed to have been largely based on animal protein and fat, whereas evidence for plant consumption is rare. We present evidence of starch grains from various wild plants on the surfaces of grinding tools at the sites of Bilancino II (Italy), Kostenki 16–Uglyanka (Russia), and Pavlov VI (Czech Republic). The samples originate from a variety of geographical and environmental contexts, ranging from northeastern Europe to the central Mediterranean, and dated to the Mid-Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian and Gorodtsovian). The three sites suggest that vegetal food processing, and possibly the production of flour, was a common practice, widespread across Europe from at least ~30,000 y ago. It is likely that high energy content plant foods were available and were used as components of the food economy of these mobile hunter–gatherers.

Reconstructing past cultural landscape and human impact using pollen and plant macroremains

Abstract Three examples of plant landscape shaping, carried out by Iron Age populations living in different geographical areas, are presented. The examples differ in population type (Garamantes, Etruscans, and Romans), archaeological context (settlement, necropolis, furnace, port), and area of plant exploitation (respectively, Fezzan – Libyan Sahara and Tuscany, Latium – central Italy). The leitmotiv of the three parallel investigations highlighted that humans induced clear changes in plant cover modifying the quantitative ratio among native elements and spreading the plants of economic interest even outside of their natural habitats. Micro- and macroremain analyses once more enhanced that landscape reconstruction depends on both wild and cultivated plants, and that the cultural plant landscape is composed of a complex mixture of indigenous and exotic elements. Archaeobotany results in great help in reviewing ancient prejudices, rewriting history in a modern ecological view, also discovering a different role in the landscape evolution of past civilizations. In this light, the Garamantes deeply transformed the oases in agrarian producer sites, and the Etruscans, in the area of the Gulf of Follonica, modified the previous forest vegetation, probably enhancing the xeric features. The Romans, believed as the main creators of the environmental changes in the Mediterranean basin, surprisingly did not produce consistent plant changes in the area of the Tiber delta, in the surroundings of the imperial port of Rome, during the first century AD.

Forest plant diversity is threatened by Robinia pseudoacacia (black-locust) invasion

The effects of black-locust invasion on plant forest diversity are still poorly investigated. Vascular plants are likely to be influenced by increasing nutrient availability associated with the nitrogen-fixing activity of black-locust, whereas it is not clear if, along with stand aging, black-locust formations regain forest species. The main aim of the present study was to test whether the increase of black-locust stand age promoted a plant variation in mature stands leading to assemblages similar to those of native forests. Therefore, plant richness and composition of stands dominated by native trees were compared with pure black-locust stands of different successional stages. Our study confirmed that the replacement of native forests by pure black-locust stands causes both plant richness loss and shifts in species composition. In black-locust stands plant communities are dominated by nitrophilous species and lack many of the oligothrophic and acidophilus species typical of native forests. Plant communities of native forests are more diverse with respect to pure black-locust stands, suggesting that black-locust invasion also causes a homogenization of the plant forest biota. We did not detect differences across the successional gradient of black-locust stands, and mature stands do not recover the diversity of plant species which are lost by the replacement of the native forests by black-locust. Accordingly some efforts in reducing the negative impacts of black-locust invasion on plant forest biota should be focused at least in those areas where conservation is among management priorities, such in the case of habitats included in the Habitat Directive (92/43 ECE).

Grinding flour in Upper Palaeolithic Europe (25000 years bp)

The authors have identified starch grains belonging to wild plants on the surface of a stone from the Gravettian hunter-gatherer campsite of Bilancino (Florence, Italy), dated to around 25000bp. The stone can be seen as a grindstone and the starch has been extracted from locally growing edible plants. This evidence can be claimed as implying the making of flour – and presumably some kind of bread – some 15 millennia before the local ‘agricultural revolution’.

Multistep food plant processing at Grotta Paglicci (Southern Italy) around 32,600 cal B.P.

Significance The Early Gravettian inhabitants of Grotta Paglicci (sublayer 23 A) are currently the most ancient hunter–gatherers able to process plants to obtain flour. They also developed targeted technologies for complex processing of the plant portions before grinding. The present study testifies for the first time, to our knowledge, the performance of a thermal pretreatment that could have been crucial in a period characterized by a climate colder than the current one. The starch record on the Paglicci grinding stone is currently the most ancient evidence of the processing of Avena (oat). Residue analyses on a grinding tool recovered at Grotta Paglicci sublayer 23A [32,614 ± 429 calibrated (cal) B.P.], Southern Italy, have demonstrated that early modern humans collected and processed various plants. The recording of starch grains attributable to Avena (oat) caryopses expands our information about the food plants used for producing flour in Europe during the Paleolithic and about the origins of a food tradition persisting up to the present in the Mediterranean basin. The quantitative distribution of the starch grains on the surface of the grinding stone furnished information about the tool handling, confirming its use as a pestle-grinder, as suggested by the wear-trace analysis. The particular state of preservation of the starch grains suggests the use of a thermal treatment before grinding, possibly to accelerate drying of the plants, making the following process easier and faster. The study clearly indicates that the exploitation of plant resources was very important for hunter–gatherer populations, to the point that the Early Gravettian inhabitants of Paglicci were able to process food plants and already possessed a wealth of knowledge that was to become widespread after the dawn of agriculture.

Ingredients of a 2,000-y-old medicine revealed by chemical, mineralogical, and botanical investigations.

In archaeology, the discovery of ancient medicines is very rare, as is knowledge of their chemical composition. In this paper we present results combining chemical, mineralogical, and botanical investigations on the well-preserved contents of a tin pyxis discovered onboard the Pozzino shipwreck (second century B.C.). The contents consist of six flat, gray, discoid tablets that represent direct evidence of an ancient medicinal preparation. The data revealed extraordinary information on the composition of the tablets and on their possible therapeutic use. Hydrozincite and smithsonite were by far the most abundant ingredients of the Pozzino tablets, along with starch, animal and plant lipids, and pine resin. The composition and the form of the Pozzino tablets seem to indicate that they were used for ophthalmic purposes: the Latin name collyrium (eyewash) comes from the Greek name κoλλυ´ρα, which means “small round loaves.” This study provided valuable information on ancient medical and pharmaceutical practices and on the development of pharmacology and medicine over the centuries. In addition, given the current focus on natural compounds, our data could lead to new investigations and research for therapeutic care.

Palaeovegetational reconstruction based on pollen and seeds/fruits from a Bronze Age archaeological site in Tuscany (Italy)

Abstract A reconstruction of the vegetation surrounding the Bronze Age archaeological site of San Lorenzo a Greve (Florence) based on pollen and seed/fruit records is presented. Pollen analysis suggests the presence of prevailingly open and damp landscapes, typically occurring on alluvial soils. Patches of woodland, mostly formed by deciduous Quercus, Ulmus, Salix, were alternated to the grasslands. Vitis also probably grew in these damp thickets together with Alnus and Hedera. The forests on the hilly slopes included deciduous Quercus, Carpinus betulus, Corylus, Cornus mas, and Sambucus nigra. Where the soil was well drained, Ostrya carpinifolia and Mediterranean evergreen elements such as Q. ilex and Viburnum tinus grew. In the landscape scenario reconstructed by pollen analysis, seeds/fruits indicated the presence of specific plants which produce a low amount of pollen: they are seldom recorded in pollen spectra but their fruits were commonly gathered in prehistory.

The garden of the “Casa delle Nozze di Ercole ed Ebe“ in Pompeii (Italy): Palynological investigations

ABSTRACT Palynological investigations in the garden of the “Casa delle Nozze di Ercole ed Ebe“ in Pompeii revealed the presence of Vitis and Citrus. Citrus has often been said to be cultivated in Roman times, but no plant remains have ever confirmed this hypothesis as regards Pompeii. In this paper, we give evidence for an early cultivation of this plant in a garden. Analyses revealed that, as already observed in other gardens, the ground was covered by herbs which were the same as those found in ancient and contemporary meadows of the Vesuvian area.

Archaeobotany in Florence (Italy): Landscape and urban development from the late Roman to the Middle Ages

Archaeological excavations in Florence (Italy) offered the opportunity of collecting archaeobotanical data along stratigraphic sequences and pits from late Roman to Middle Ages; until now, no archaeobotanical data of this range of time were available for Florence. To achieve a more comprehensive reconstruction of the antique landscape and of the plant uses in the city, the results of plant micro- and macro-remain analyses were compared. During the late Roman Period, mixed oak forests covered the surrounding hills, while only scattered riverine thickets grew in the Arno river plain, which was mostly open. In the city, the increase in richness of cultivated plants, weeds and ruderals follows the advancement of urbanization from the late Roman to the Middle Ages when the abundance of remains of cereals, figs, grapevines and other fruits showed that cultivation and/or food processing were performed close to and even within the town wall. Peaks of heather (Erica spp.) pollen suggested that its flowering branches were introduced in the site and possibly used as building material or for the maintenance of the Arno river bank. Thus, this integrated archaeobotanical approach provided new insights into the environmental and ethnobotanical history of Florence, highlighting the occurrence of horticulture within the city wall.

Palynological diagram of the peat‐bog near Pavullo nel Frignano (Modena, Italy) in the framework of Tuscan/Emilian Apennines vegetation history

A pollen diagram drawn for a peat bog located at San Pellegrino, in a vast plain at 675 m a.s.1. near Pavullo nel Frignano (Modena, Italy), is of vegetation on the northern slope of the Tuscan/Emilian Apennines. This altitude is just below the lower limit of the Fagus‐Abies belt. The sequence, 20 m in depth, consists mostly of clayey sediments in its lower part, the upper part prevalently formed by peat. The upper complex is dated by 14C at 10,790 yr B.P. and 2590 yr B.P., the lower part of the sequence is dated by chronological comparison with Chiarugis diagram (1950) and subsequent 14C updates (Bertolani Marchetti, 1985). The sequence apparently begins after 16,950 yr B.P., because its lower part does not reach the Salix tundra/Artemisia steppe located at the bottom of Chiarugis diagram. The period of general dominance of Pinus over the existing Fagus and oak mixed forest runs from about 20 m and 12 m. The Lanscombe (?), Dryas I and Bolling phases fall here. After a hiatus that may contain the Dryas I...