Underground Storage Organs (USOs) commonly known as roots, tubers or bulbs and also referred to as parenchymatous tissue, are plant structures that store energy (mostly carbohydrates) and water. Current research suggests that USOs had a key role in two capital moments of human history: as a fall-back and also staple food during hominin evolution; and at the beginning of the domestication of plants and animals in south-west Asia, where USOs may be as important as cereals and legumes. Therefore, it can be expected that they had a major role in plenty of other hunter-gatherer (HG) prehistoric societies but have been to date undervalued for multiple reasons such as retrieval issues, identification difficulties and also the focus on other food resources. The result is that these materials remain very often unstudied, kept in drawers without further analysis, together with other materials such as bread-like and food remains. All these reasons, together with the limited availability of atlases and reference collections available, explain the underrepresentation of this resource in the archaeological record.
In a quick changing world which wanders towards globalization, the interest on slow food, and, in general, traditional foods, has continuously gained more followers during the last decade. The result is a big focus of the citizenship’s attention on wild local plants, but also a bunch of expectations in better knowing the environment and how past communities managed the resources available. This is also directly related to food security concerns, which has became a hot topic in many fields of research, and allows to translate from the past to the present and from academic archaeology to the public. Moreover,a primary aim of the CHUFA project is to unveil the use of a plant resource generally harvested by the female segment of human groups, putting into value the labour and role of this in a given society. The traditional approach to HG diets has relied on animal remains and chemical analysis that focused on protein-rich foods. In addition to the resulting bias in the definition of these diets, they also minimize the role of women, children and elderly people who were, according to ethnographic records, often in charge of gathering plants for food and other purposes. These activities, have traditionally received less attention from scholars, as a result of the androcentric lead of science. Consequently, unveiling the consumption of USOs will contribute to assess the role of women within HG communities, balancing our knowledge about men and women economical activities in the past.
The aim of this proposal is to stablish a systematic methodology for the study of Underground Storage Organs (USOs), commonly known as roots, tubers or bulbs, creating a digital reference collection database and developing experimental archaeology. The main research objectives of this proposal are: a) Application of new methods to study parenchymatous tissue remains (ESEM, 3Dscanner and microCT), b) Creation and publication of a botanical reference collection of USOs using the new methods and c) Creation of a data base on use-wear traces and residues on experimental material related to USOs labour. Through its interdisciplinary approach this project will provide archaeobotanists and use-wear analysis specialists with reference material for the identification of USOs and their processing in archaeological sites and fill in this gap in Hunter-Gatherer investigation.
