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Assessing the economic role of the founder crops prior to the emergence of agriculture

Description du projet

Découvrir la place des cultures fondatrices du néolithique dans la société de l’Asie du Sud-Ouest

Le blé, l’orge, les lentilles, les pois, les pois chiches, la vesce amère et le lin sont connus comme étant les cultures fondatrices de l’agriculture néolithique. On a supposé qu’elles étaient des aliments végétaux stables avant même leur culture et leur domestication. De nouvelles preuves archéobotaniques récentes viennent toutefois remettre cette hypothèse en question. En se concentrant sur l’analyse interdisciplinaire d’un type d’artefact encore peu connu, à savoir les restes préservés de plantes alimentaires préparées, le projet Founders financé par l’UE déterminera le rôle que les espèces fondatrices ont joué avant l’agriculture, contribuant ainsi à notre compréhension des facteurs qui ont déclenché le processus de domestication des plantes en Asie du Sud-Ouest.

Objectif

Between 10.7 and 10.2 ka cal. BP a process culminated in southwest Asia that marked the path of human history: the domestication of plants. A group of eight species including wild cereals, pulses and flax become the “founder crops” of Neolithic agriculture, revolutionizing our economy and subsistence for the time to come. But why were these species domesticated and not others? It has often been assumed that these species were staples, and the increasing need to procure more of these daily foods eventually triggered their cultivation, and domestication. However, recent archaeobotanical evidence is starting to challenge this long-held view. Building on eight of the richest and most iconic Natufian hunter-gatherer and Pre-Pottery Neolithic farming sites in SWA (14.6-10.2 ka cal. BP), this project seeks to test the hypothesis that the Neolithic “founder crops” were also staples before the emergence of agriculture. Any deviation from this view will revolutionise our understanding of the factors that triggered the process of plant domestication in SWA. To provide fresh perspectives, the work will focus on one of the most innovative, yet understudied, frontiers of archaeological research: the analyses of charred food remains (CFR). The fellow will receive training on the analyses of CFR, and pioneer an inter-disciplinary approach based on state-of-the-art archaeobotanical and biomolecular techniques, ethnobotany and experimental archaeology. In turn, she will transfer her world-class expertise in hunter-gatherer plant subsistence and archaeobotany and expand the analyses of CFR to periods and regions not previously explored by the host, as well as to foster new collaborations with academic (secondments) and non-academic partners (gastronomic faculties and haute chefs). All together, this project guarantees the two-way transfer of knowledge and represents a solid investment of funds from which the fellow, the host institutions and the European society will largely benefit.

Champ scientifique

CORDIS classe les projets avec EuroSciVoc, une taxonomie multilingue des domaines scientifiques, grâce à un processus semi-automatique basé sur des techniques TLN.

Coordinateur

MUSEUM NATIONAL D'HISTOIRE NATURELLE
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 196 707,84
Adresse
RUE CUVIER 57
75005 Paris
France

Voir sur la carte

Région
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Type d’activité
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Liens
Coût total
€ 196 707,84