Project description
Rethinking the first steps toward farming
The origins of farming around 11 000 years ago are often linked to the growing use of starch-rich grasses such as early cereals. But humans were experimenting with a range of plants before that. The ERC-funded Plant-Pro project studies how ancient humans used protein-rich plants thousands of years before farming even emerged. It will analyse plant remains, chemical traces of food preparation and ancient DNA from archaeological sites in the Zagros region of Iraq. The project’s goal is to reconstruct how Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens prepared plant foods and how changing diets helped shape human adaptation and the eventual rise of agriculture.
Objective
The development of agriculture 11,000 years ago in Southwest Asia fundamentally transformed human societies and their relationships with plants and landscapes, often portrayed as arising from the increasingly intensive use of starch-rich grasses. Plant-Pro challenges current understandings of the transition from foraging to farming through its deep-time focus on changes to the use of protein-rich plants by early humans (Neanderthals and Homo sapiens). A new reliance on protein-rich plants, achieved through novel forms of cooking and food preparation, provides evidence for previously undocumented adaptations to major shifts in the environmental availability of wild food resources. The deep-time perspective adopted by Plant-Pro will document the development of plant management strategies in the periods preceding the dawn of farming, and open new avenues of scientific research into plant dietary proteins predating the transformations in culinary cultures traditionally associated with the so-called agricultural revolution. The project will employ proven analytical methods integrating archaeobotany with experimental archaeology, biomolecular techniques (isotopes, biomarkers, organic residues), and sedimentary DNA. Its main outcome will be a new set of baseline referents and integrative methods for detecting early plant cooking and food preparation, and its crucial role in human evolution, which will have wide application beyond the project. These methods will be refined and tested on three archaeological sites in the northern Zagros of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq containing well-preserved plant remains from securely dated contexts spanning the Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic periods.u
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics DNA
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology ethnoarchaeology
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture industrial crops fodder
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
L69 7ZX LIVERPOOL
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.