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The contribution of charred plant remains towards the investigation of flat extended settlements : the archaeobotanical assemblage fron neolithic Apsalos-Grammi

Μελέτες

• Βαλαμώτη, Σουλτάνα Μαρία

One of the key issues of investigation in the prehistory of northern Greece focuses on the factors underlying the development of two site types, tells and fiat/extended settlements. Differences in land use through plant and animal husbandry have been among the factors suggested as contributing towards the differences in settlement pattern. Such suggestions, however, have largely been based on speculation and assumptions rather than archaeobotanical or archaeozoological data. The archaeobotanical assemblage from the site of Apsalos-Grammi in western Macedonia, northern Greece, dated to the middle of the 6th millennium B.C., is analysed in this paper in an attempt to highlight aspects of Neolithic agriculture and use of space at flat/extended settlements in the region of Macedonia and Thrace. Together with the fully published assemblage from Late Neolithic Makriyalos they provide the basis for a consideration of the use of space in relation to plant processing, consumption and deposition.The site of Apsalos-Grammi is located to the northeast of the village of Apsalos in a small valley surrounded by the mountains Voras and Paikon. It is a flat-extended site inhabited during the Middle Neolithic and possible the early phase of the Late Neolithic and was excavated by A. Chrysostomou within the years 1999-2001. The architectural features revealed at the site consist of ditches and pits. Some of the latter fall among the area defined by the ditch(es) and have been described as ‘the habitation area’. A total of 495 soil samples have been processed from the site by flotation. The crops used at Apsalos-Grammi include the glume wheats, einkorn, emmer, ‘new wheat type' and two-row barley. No free-threshing wheat has been identified at the site. Pulses are present at low proportions, with lentil being the most common and abundant species. Other pulse species identified include pea, grass pea and bitter vetch, though it is impossible to tell for the last two whether they were actually used at the site. Flax seeds and fruits (fig, grape, blackberry, elderberry, Cornelian cherry) are present albeit in very low numbers. Wild/weed species are either absent or occur very sporadically and in very low numbers, with the exception of two samples from the ‘habitation area’.In their vast majority, the cereals present in the samples consist of glume wheat chaff (glume bases) and rachis internodes (barley). More than 90% of the assemblage is dominated by glume wheat chaff. Among the glume wheat species, einkorn and 'new wheat type’ dominate, with the latter being the most abundant. The chaff identified at Apsalos-Grammi could have originated from glume wheat dehusking by products or dung cakes (either as a component of the original dung or as admixture for the construction of these cakes) used as fuel. This charred chaff dominating the deposits at Apsalos represents in all likelihood spent fuel. Although there is as yet, no way of distinguishing between digested and undigested chaff burnt as fuel, the extremely low presence, or even absence, of cereal grain, the very poor preservation and high fragmentation of a very large proportion of the glume bases, as well as the cooccurrence of fruit seeds with some of the samples, especially fig seeds, suggest the likelihood of a dung origin of at least some of the plant material deposited at Apsalos. The major spatial differences identified at the site are the following:a) a very limited presence of archaeobotanical material at the ‘habitation area’, despite the negative features such as pits and postholes excavated in that area,b) the impressive presence of wild/weed seeds in all samples from pit 23 in the habitation area. This spatial variation in the deposition of plant remains at the site may reflect differences in use of space, whereby the ditches act as recipients of ashes, at intervals, as density varies within the ditches and sterile deposits within areas of the ditches and the pits have been identified. It is possible that the activities related to the generating of charred plant remains were concentrated at parts of the site other than the ‘habitation area’.The lack of wild/weed seeds at the vast majority of the samples could be related to careful weeding or harvesting of the ears or both, implying therefore small scale agricultural production. The near absence of wild/weed seeds and the possible dung origin of some at least of the chaff could be interpreted, as for Makriyalos, as indicative of movement, away from the settlement, of part of the site inhabitants during summer, in search for grazing for their animals. This need not necessarily have involved movement of all the settlement’s inhabitants, the presence of which would have been necessary for harvesting the cereal fields. The limited presence of wild/weed seeds at pit 23 in the ‘habitation area' may be related to such summer occupation at the site, possibly small scale.The specific pattern of deposition of charred plant remains identified at Apsalos is very similar to that recognised at Makriyalos. The dominance of chaff and the near absence of charred grain deposits at both sites, compared to the dominance of grain at other sites such as Mandalo, Arkadikos and Dikili Tash, may be related to a small scale of production and storage at flat extended settlements, leading to limited chances of destruction by fire. By contrast, at tell sites, alongside habitation of the same space through many generations, storage of surplus may have become especially significant towards the development of hierarchies expressed through the process of tell formation

• History and Archaeology
• Earth and related Environmental sciences

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)
• Τοπογραφία

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