Sara Mareković

Archaeobotanical components of grave goods in prehistoric tumuli 6 and 7 at the archaeological site of Kaptol-Gradci, near Požega (Croatia)

Abstract The Iron Age site of Kaptol-Gradci belongs to the south-eastern periphery of the Hallstatt cultural complex, dominated primarily by the Kaptol cultural group, and encompasses a hillfort settlement and necropolis. During the investigation campaigns organized to date, 25 tumuli have been identified and 17 of them investigated. This paper presents the first results of the analysis of plant remains from a Hallstatt necropolis in Croatia, from tumuli 6 and 7, identified as an integral part of the complex burial ritual. In both tumuli, the predominant finds were of cereal grains (83% in tumulus 6 and 96.9% in tumulus 7). Besides the cereal grains, a very small quantity of weeds representing accidental associations have also been identified, as well as remains of wild fruits collected in the countryside. On the basis of the first results obtained from the archaeological site of Kaptol-Gradci and the scarce archaeobotanical research into Hallstatt necropolises in Europe, the conclusion can be drawn that a potential pattern can be observed, an element of a complex burial ritual in which cereal grains (overwhelmingly dominant in terms of their relative proportions) played an important role, together with various fruit deposits, whose type and quantity probably depended on the season, their availability in the environment and/or the possibility of their storage/preservation.

A comparison of the influences of flotation and wet sieving on certain carbonized legume and cereal remains

Abstract In order to determine the influence of recovery techniques with water (flotation and wet sieving) on carbonized plant remains, a certain amount of wheat, barley, millet, horsebean and lentil macrofossils from archaeological sites was taken and treated with water. Moist recovery was also applied to in-laboratory, artificially, charred barley, millet and lentil samples. After the treatments, the investigated remains were re-counted and the percentages of still recognizable remains for every plant species and for each method were recorded. Comparisons were made of the sensitivities of the investigated species and of the differences in the degree of macrofossil breakup depending on the method of recovery. Our investigation proved that flotation is a less aggressive method than wet sieving and that barley, horsebean and wheat carbonized macrofossils are resistant to moist treatments, while the breakup percentage of lentil and millet (from archaeological sites) is higher than 30%, which should be taken into account when deciding on the (non)use of water recovery in the investigations.