Project description
Digging up information about the ancient crops in the Levant
During the 1st millennium, the Early Islamic Green Revolution (IGR) brought a transformation of agriculture, irrigation techniques, and adaptation of ancient crops in the region. It also spread new farming techniques and crops to western culture. Today the Aravah Valley region is home to numerous well-preserved plant macrofossils and herbivore dung pellets – a promising source of information. The EU-funded CroProLITE project will provide a pioneering microregional comparative study of 1st millennium CE agropastoral change. It will investigate coprolites and crop plant remains from the 1st millennium CE Negev Highlands and Aravah Valley. Lessons on agricultural continuity and change from that region will shed light on the historical effects of environmental stressors.
Objective
CroProLITE aims to evaluate the Islamic Green Revolution (IGR) thesis–involving crop introduction from eastern and central Asia to the Mediterranean by Early Islamic empires–through a microregional comparative study of 1st millennium CE agropastoral change. It applies archaeobotanical and biomolecular methods to numerous well-preserved plant macrofossils and herbivore dung pellets from rubbish dumps at nine Roman-Early Islamic trading sites in the Aravah valley on the southern border of modern Israel-Jordan and the adjacent Negev Highlands. Some sites are associated with Early Islamic agrotechnological introduction of qanat irrigation, indicating likely Early Islamic crop introduction there. Capitalizing on similarity of archaeological context alongside dissimilarity of historic-economic context, the comparative method will be applied to these regions and periods. To identify seasonal agropastoral rhythms, an extensive and innovative multi-proxy methodological study will analyse contents of ancient dung pellets from the sites. New datasets generated from plant remains and coprolites will allow synthesis of agropastoral developments at seasonal to millennial scales and framing of findings in terms of ancient economic history and Mediterranean deep history. Lessons on agricultural continuity and change from the Negev-Aravah in the face of first millennium CE global climate change, plague and cultural conflict hold promise for improved understanding of historical effects of environmental stressors. In unearthing such lessons, CroProLITE will contribute to long-term environmental risk assessment and reflection on our own society’s future, offering a model for environmental humanities research.
Host supervisor and leading palaeoproteomics scholar Matthew Collins will guide biomolecular archaeology training through coprolite analysis, alongside multiple mentors for ancient economic history and Mediterranean history-archaeology, including career mentor Cyprian Broodbank.
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.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
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.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
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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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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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.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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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) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020
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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.
CB2 1TN CAMBRIDGE
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.