Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PATH (Plant-Human Interactions in the Levantine Neolithic Investigated through Ground Stone Tool Use and Dental Calculus)
Reporting period: 2022-01-16 to 2024-01-15
The PATH project explored plant-human interactions at the dawn of agriculture, and specifically how plant domestication transformed established patterns of wild plant exploitation, and affected plant food-related technology and dietary habits of Levantine early agricultural groups. Plants and plant foods have played an invaluable role throughout human (pre)history an so far, little attention was paid in understanding to which extent the long-lasting human-wild plants interactions changed at the dawn of agriculture. Specifically, what still remained unclear is the way and pace in which the introduction of domestic crops transformed consolidated dietary habits related to the processing and consumption of wild plant foods. PATH aimed at addressing these aspects through: a) indirect evidence gathered from the study of ground stone tools, applying a new approach blending qualitative and quantitative methods to gather new information about their use in plant food exploitation; b) direct evidence of plant consumption gathered through the analysis of ancient human dental calculus and the study of plant structures entrapped in its matrix, which are potentially capable of discriminating plant taxa at the family and species level. Ground stone tools are characterised by long lifecycles, which makes them prime evidence for tackling a wide range of archaeological questions about daily subsistence, ancient technology and lifeways. By analysing functional micro-relief modifications through optical light microscopy and confocal scanning microscopy as well as associated residue, PATH provided key information about plant food processing activities at each site. These data have been coupled with the results obtained from the dental calculus analysis. Known also as tartar, dental calculus is a mineralized bio-deposit of plaque adhering to the tooth enamel and the micro-food particles (e.g. starch granules and phytoliths) entrapped within it, allow to unravel novel information about the dietary habits of the first Neolithic farmers of the Levant. Through the analysis of samples from contexts dated from the Natufian to the PPNB periods, the project represented one of the first attempts to combine the study of material culture and human dental calculus for investigating patterns of wild vs domestic plants consumption during the Near East Agricultural Revolution and it proposed as well the first methodological attempt to systematically apply confocal scanning microscopy and surface metrology to the study of ground stone tool use. The project provided a significant methodological advancement in the field of wear-wear analysis, developing a workflow for the systematic application confocal scanning microscopy to study ground stone tool's use. A further contribution of the PATH project derived from its novel approach, based on the combined analysis of material culture and bioarchaeological evidence. This integration allowed to unravel practices related to the processing of plant foods and direct information associated with their actual consumption. By doing so, it was possible to identify similarities or differences in plant processing patterns, evaluating them from a chronological and regional perspective. In this sense, among the results obtained in the project the evidence concerning the exploitation of pulses in Natufian and PPNA and PPNB contexts in Israel and Jordan is particularly significant. Identifying use-related traces and residues on tools and the plant micro remains found in dental calculus underlined the importance of legumes such as chickpeas, peas and lentils and shed new light on the role of pulses in the lifeways of levantine early Neolithic farmers as well as on their importance in the development and spread of agricultural practices during the Neolithic.
To reveal how the advent of domesticates affected well-established plant foods exploitation habits among the first farming communities of the Levant, the PATH project analysed material culture bioarchaeological evidence from Natufian, Pre Pottery Neolithic A and Pre pottery Neolithic B context in Israel and Jordan. Specifically, the project focused on the techno functional analysis of ground stone tools and the analysis of ancient human dental calculus. The functional study of groundstone tools comprised the observation of use wear at low and high magnification and the analysis of use-related residues entrapped within the tools’ surface crevices. A novelty introduced in the PATH project has been the quantitative analysis of microwear using a confocal scanning microscope and 3D surface textural analysis. Also, experimental archaeology played a significant role in PATH. During the project, an ad-hoc experimental framework focusing on using modern ground stone tool replicas in plant food processing activities was designed and carried out. This allowed to build an extensive use wear and residue reference collection to ensure a reliable and robust functional interpretation of the archaeological tools. Ancient dental calculus analysis was carried out in parallel to the functional study of ground stone tools. Using a cross-polarised transmitted light microscope, plant micro debris found entrapped in the calculus matrix allowed to reconstruct detailed palaeodietary habits. Such direct evidence of plant food consumption, coupled with the information on plant processing strategies generated by the analysis of ground stone tools, permitted the unravelling of novel aspects of plant-human interactions occurring during the Neolithic in the Near East. Preliminary results of the PATH project have been published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Antiquity (Zupancich et al., 2023). The project and its results have been presented at various international conferences and meetings, including the European Association of Archaeologist - EAA conference held in Budapest, the 4th Meeting of the Association for Ground Stone Tools Research held in Paris (France), the 10th International Conference of the Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Near East PPN10, held in Copenhagen (Denmark).
PATH's contribution beyond the state of the art relies on its aims and methodology. Combining the analysis of material culture and bioarchaeological evidence, the project permitted to reveal new insights into how the advent of agriculture and domesticates changed the lifeways of the first farming communities in the Near East. Through the combined analysis of groundstone tools and ancient dental calculus, PATH proposed a novel approach to overcome the common challenges this type of study poses in arid environments, namely the bad preservation of the usual proxies (e.g. bone collagen) used to reconstruct ancient dietary practices. Furthermore, by developing a successful and new workflow for applying confocal scanning microscopy in the study of ground stone tool use, PATH significantly contributed to the field of use-wear analysis. The results of PATH, especially concerning evidence on the processing and consumption of legumes among Natufian and Pre Pottery Neolithic communities of the Levant, underline the importance of pulses in the life of the first farming communities, opening new avenues of research and posing the basis for the development of new models on Near East plant domestication addressing the importance of pulses in the development and spread of agricultural practices across the Near East during the Neolithic.