First, the creation of a wood and charcoal comparative collection, that will include digital images, will significantly improve access to botanical reference materials for tropical regions. By distributing replicated collections across European institutions and Sri Lanka, the project establishes essential infrastructure for advancing charcoal analysis. This effort builds on earlier foundational work, such as the atlas by Asouti and Fuller, and will support the development of anthracology in underrepresented regions while training new researchers, including a PhD student in Sri Lanka.
Second, the project addresses major gaps in understanding past subsistence and environmental transformations in tropical South Asia. Archaeobotanical evidence suggests that diverse subsistence strategies—such as hunting, farming, herding, and fishing—coexisted, and that key transitions, including the shift to irrigated agriculture during the Iron Age, significantly altered landscapes and resource use. These changes likely impacted fuel practices, introducing new materials such as agricultural by-products or dung. By analysing charcoal from earlier prehistoric to early historic periods, the project aims to clarify how major developments like agriculture, urbanization, and metallurgy influenced firewood procurement.
Third, the project contributes to strengthening archaeobotanical research capacity in Sri Lanka, where the field remains underdeveloped due to limited funding, training, and infrastructure. By promoting the study of wood and charcoal among local doctoral students and providing access to reference collections and training, the project enhances scientific skills, fosters interdisciplinary research, and supports long-term academic development in the region.
Fourth, the research addresses a major gap in ethnoarchaeology of fuels, a field that has received limited attention globally. Firewood collection has often been overlooked or undervalued, frequently dismissed as a simple or insignificant activity and associated mainly with women and children, whose roles are often neglected in archaeological narratives. This project challenges such assumptions by emphasizing the complex socio-environmental relationships involved in energy use. Through ethnographic fieldwork among the Vedda, it will generate new insights into firewood practices, traditional environmental knowledge, and gendered roles in resource management, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of human-environment interactions.
Finally, the project underscores the importance of connecting people with plant knowledge and nature. It highlights that educational and outreach activities in archaeology tend to prioritize more visible aspects such as tools or hunting, while plant-related knowledge remains underrepresented. By developing inclusive and diverse educational resources focused on plants, the project aims to elevate the cultural and scientific importance of the plant world, fostering greater environmental awareness and supporting sustainable development.
