Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GRAMADIF (Do grains make the difference? Plant economies during the development of urban societies in Mesopotamia)
Reporting period: 2022-01-10 to 2024-01-09
Whereas agriculture is considered as one of the main driver for the emergence of the first cities in Mesopotamia, direct evidence (e.g plant remains) are scarce. Instead, most of the information we have derive from cuneiform texts, recovered on few archaeological sites in Lowland Iraq, often out of context, which report on the type of crops being grown and delivered to the palaces and temples. Despite the long evolution of farming that began in Southwest Asia ca. 10th mill. BCE, and was accompanied by the numerous technical innovations, feeding the world’s population remains a challenge. Continuing population growth tends to be concentrated in urban centres and requires the construction of new infrastructures. Cities expand horizontally mostly, contributing to the reduction of the countryside, where most of the staple food is produced. In addition, climate change and socio-cultural contexts are important factors impacting crop production. Farmers have to adapt and as such, various innovative strategies and experiments are developed. But this problem is not new. The exact same phenomenon occurred five to three millennia ago in Mesopotamia. At the end of the 5th mill. BCE, proto-urban centres emerged. While their population was growing, settlements extended and were re-organised, with a specialisation and spatialisation of activities. Inequalities increased and upper classes progressively took control of social, economic and political decisions. To sustain urban populations the city-state model emerged, connecting large settlements to their hinterland that provided agricultural surplus. Mesopotamian farmers also had to face climate changes, with the 4th mill. BCE marking the beginning of the aridification process. To maintain the yield inhabitants had to adapt and in the south, irrigation systems developed. But this caused the salinisation of soils that became unsuitable for wheat cultivation. In this context, the Gramadif project aimed at 1) reconstructing the plant economy of the site and to compare it to adjacent areas, 2) evaluating the impact of social interactions on plant exploitation and consumption and 3) characterising the beginning of irrigation practice and its evolution. By including various sites, distributed in distinct ecosystems in Iraq and encompassing a wide chronological frame, our dataset aimed at being as much as representative as possible.
The fellow carried out systematic sampling on various fieldworks and processed 398 soil samples by flotation deriving from 8 archaeological sites in Iraq. In the laboratory, 558 flots recovered on these 8 sites plus 5 others were analysed. Taxonomic and morphometric analyses were supported by the Flora of Iraq, the reference collection of the Institute of Archaeology and the collection of additional modern specimens. This work allowed the identification of a wide range of archaeological plant taxa. In parallel, an Access Database was created to record the newly produced archaeobotanical results and to compare them to those obtained previously (before 2010s). In total, the database includes data from 62 iraqi archaeological sites. The results indicates that glume wheat and barley were the main crops in Iraq. Interestingly, free-threshing wheat doesn’t appear as a major crop component. Higher precipitation in the north likely explains the higher importance of pulses in this region. Conversely, the warmer temperatures in the south, allowed the cultivation of date palm and sesame, respectively from the from the 5th and 3rd mill. BCE. Conversely to adjacent areas, our results do not indicate major changes (towards more drought-tolerant crops) in northern Iraq at the beginning of the 2nd mill. BCE. Environmental conditions in the Zagros mountains (e.g. high precipitation, deep and moist soils) could have nuanced the effects of aridification characterising the 4.2ka BP event. In the south, barley became widely dominant at this period but it was already the major crop before. The increasing importance of barley could reflect the end of the ‘humid phase’ occurring from the 4th millennium and/or be the consequence of socio-political decisions. The study of the material from southern sites provides some insights: ‘Uwaili and Abu Salabikh were dominated by glume wheat, whereas the later site of Larsa was dominated by barley. Farming distinction could thus result from either human choices or environmental constraints. In addition, taxonomic investigations allow the identification of hygrophilous and halophytic taxa, associated to rivers and irrigation, and saline soils (potentially due to irrigation) respectively. Irrigation is also suggested by the identification of six-rows barley at Larsa.
Results of the project were disseminated through 11 presentations, including 4 international conferences and 5 Research Seminars. In the occasion of the 13th ICAANE Conference, the fellow co-organised a workshop entitled ‘From villages to cities: plant and animal economies in ancient Iraq’. This scientific event gathered 12 oral presentations from specialists involved in new archaeological projects in Iraq and favoured interdisciplinary discussions. The archaeobotanical results from Logardan were published in a special issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: report (Douché and Charles 2023). The paper presents the composition of the assemblage; by classifying the taxa - based on the size and hardiness of the seeds – the fellow and her supervisor (Prof. M. Charles) have suggested the use of animal dung as fuel for firing pottery at the end of the 3rd mill. BCE.
Results of the project were disseminated through 11 presentations, including 4 international conferences and 5 Research Seminars. In the occasion of the 13th ICAANE Conference, the fellow co-organised a workshop entitled ‘From villages to cities: plant and animal economies in ancient Iraq’. This scientific event gathered 12 oral presentations from specialists involved in new archaeological projects in Iraq and favoured interdisciplinary discussions. The archaeobotanical results from Logardan were published in a special issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: report (Douché and Charles 2023). The paper presents the composition of the assemblage; by classifying the taxa - based on the size and hardiness of the seeds – the fellow and her supervisor (Prof. M. Charles) have suggested the use of animal dung as fuel for firing pottery at the end of the 3rd mill. BCE.
Overall, the Gramadif project has allowed us to investigate the north/south farming dichotomy that had been previously hypothesised but not demonstrated. It also contributes detail regarding the assumed importance of barley over wheat in ancient Iraq, highlighting the importance of analysing data at a local (or even site) level and revealed the importance of archaeological contexts. Most of the previously generated archaeobotanical data available for this area was highly biased due to the sampling strategies carried out during old excavations. The selection of assemblages produced by more systematic recovery technique sheds light on the importance of glume wheat in this region. To illustrate, while at ‘Uwaili the previous study indicated the predominance of barley based on sampling a single silo, the new study based on sampling from various contexts evidences the importance of glume wheat. In addition, whereas previous theories suggested that the problem of soil salinisation in Lowland Mesopotamia occurred as the result of intensive use of irrigation after the rise of cities, our new study suggests the possibility that the problem already started by the end of the 4th mill. Further work is needed to explore this process that would be a considerable renewal on the ecological effect of urbanisation. Understanding this process would certainly be useful for contemporaneous societies facing the equation of growing population and challenged production due to climate changes.