Morphometric Analyses of Cereal Grains from Central Jordan Improve the Resolution of Identifying Shifts in Crop Cultivation and Processing Strategies over 2000 Years (ca. 800 BCE - 1300 CE)

Summary

The measurement of carbonized domesticated cereal caryopses through a number of established morphometric parameters has the potential to provide information on past cultivation conditions, crop processing practices, and taphonomic processes. This poster presents the results of morphometric analyses using a microscope-mounted camera on carbonized cereal caryopses of wheat (Triticum aestivum/durum and Triticum dicoccum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) collected from the archaeological site of Dhiban, Jordan. The settlement of Dhiban was occupied by agricultural societies for over 2,500 years, although it is located in a semi-arid bioclimate with rainfall too low and variable for reliable rain-fed agriculture. Computer-imaging based morphometric analyses of these grains illustrates that barley caryopses are significantly thicker in the Byzantine period (ca. 500 CE) than in the later Middle Islamic (ca. 1300) period, although wheat grain sizes are not significantly different between these periods. The decreased size and yet increased variance of barley caryopsis size in Middle Islamic period samples indicates a shift in agricultural production towards targeted expediency as well as increased crop processing on the site itself. The morphometric analysis of cereal caryopses thus enhances the resolution of the identification of long-term shifts in agricultural practice at the level of changes in individual cultigens.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage