Predicting Water Availability from Phytolith Assemblages of Finger Millet, Pearl Millet, and Sorghum

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany, Part II" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The interpretation of water management practices and the use of irrigation for agricultural intensification has been central to the archaeological debate. Until now no direct method has been presented for the discrimination of water availability for C4 cultivated crops, representing the main components of the agricultural package in drylands. In this study, phytoliths are suggested as possible proxies to overcome the methodological issue. Experimental cultivations of traditional landraces of sorghum, pearl millet, and finger millet have been conducted, simulating irrigated and rainfed fields in drylands. Morphotypes concentration and ratios in relation to water availability have been investigated from different plant tissues and a prediction model was tested on the basis of the results obtained. The model built on phytolith composition has been applied to four different archaeological deposits of the Mature phase of the Indus Civilization: Harappa, Kanmer, Shikarpur, and Alamgirpur with the aim of formulating new hypothesis on the land use strategies. Additionally, the same model has been used to test the potential extent of finger millet and sorghum agriculture in the northern Horn of Africa region during the Aksumite Kingdom; that is, the period when finger millet and sorghum are first documented in the macro- and microbotanical record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany, Part II   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41580.0