Seeds and statistics at tell Shiyukh Tahtani, Syria...(1981), (Jones (1987a), van der Veen (2007) and van der Veen and Jones (2006). The basis of this method was ethnobotanical information

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1. Introduction

This paper is based on the analysis of aBronze Age assemblage from Tell Shi-yukh Tahtani, Syria. This formed thebasis of the author’s MSc dissertation(Gilligan 2010). The macrofossils re-trieved from seven samples were firstidentified. Statistical calculation wasthen carried out, using the ratios of re-lative frequencies of cereal, chaff andweed, in order to determine the originof the samples or the ‘routes of entry’

(van der Veen 2007). The paper is pre-sented as an overview rather than an in-depth discussion as additional analysisis ongoing.

2. Tell Shiyukh Tahtani

The site of Tell Shiyukh Tahtani (TallŠiyuḫ Taḥtānī) is located south of theTurkish border (Falsone 1995:37) onthe eastern bank of the Euphrates River(Sconzo 2007:268; Falsone 1998:24).It consists of a conical mound which is

Seeds and statistics at tell Shiyukh Tahtani,Syria

Nikolah Gilligan(Autónoma)

[email protected]

ABSTRACTThis paper outlines initial findings from the analysis of charred macrofossils found during excavations ofEarly and Middle Bronze Age levels at Tell Shiyukh Tahtani, Syria. The plant remains are statistically cal-culated in terms of variables or ratios in order to assess their ‘routes of entry’. It is surmised that diffe-rences between the two periods suggest changes in the way the crop was harvest, stored and used.

Keywords:Charred macrofossils, Bronze Age, Syria.

RESUMAquest article descriu els resultats inicials de l'anàlisi de macrofossils carbonitzats trobats durant les ex-cavacions de la primrera i mitjana i edat del Bronze als nivells a dir Shiyukh Tahtani, Síria. Les restes ve-getals són estadísticament calculades en termes de variables o ràtios per tal d'avaluar les seves “rutesd'entrada". Es dedueix que les diferències entre els dos períodes suggereixen canvis en la manera en quèla collita va ser collida, emmagatzemada i usada.

Paraules Clau: Macrofossils carbonitzats, Edat del Bronze, Síria.

Rebut: 30 gener 2014; Acceptat: 15 març 2014

estrat critic_2015_7_8:Maquetación 1 21/10/2014 12:46 Página 39

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17m in height and surrounded on threesides by a Lower Town. The entire sitespans 6 hectares and excavations haveyielded evidence for thirteen distinctive

phases of activity representing almostcontinuous occupation from the EarlyBronze Age to the Ottoman period.

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Seeds and statistics at tell Shiyukh Tahtani, Syria.

The samples which are the subject ofthis paper were gathered during exca-vations of Early Bronze Age and Mid-dle Bronze Age deposits. Four of thesamples were taken from the EarlyBronze Age levels, which primarilyconsisted of domestic architecture; fea-tures included an oven, bin and a floor.The three samples retrieved from theMiddle Bronze Age level were takenfrom a storeroom and a floor.

3. Principles of Archaeobotany

This paper is based upon the principlesof scientific analysis and interpretationof archaeobotanical remains. The iden-tification of each fragment possible andassessment of the origin of each con-text makes it easier to ask questions of

the data to enable a better understan-ding of the socio-cultural and econo-mic practises which may havegoverned the tell (van der Veen 1992,2007).

Most archaeobotanical assemblageshave been created by people throughtheir regular interaction with plants.The latter become preserved by cha-rring, waterlogging or desiccation; thisstudy was concerned with a charred as-semblage.

It is important that ‘routes of entry’ beidentified in order to assess the poten-tial of the data (Hillman 1981; Jones1987a and b; van der Veen 1992). Themost common ‘routes of entry’ ofseeds and chaff into archaeological fe-

View of Tell Shiyukh Tahtani showing a modernwater-tower on the top (after Falsone and Sconzo

2009).

The location of Shiyukh Tahtani (After Anastasioet al. 2004)


atures include food processing, prepa-ration, consumption and storage as wellas through fuel, animal dung, buildingmaterials and ritual (van der Veen2007; Matthews 2009). Inevitably,most assemblages have been built upduring a series of activities and are thussecondary in nature (Schiffer 1976;Hubbard and Clapham 1992).

Primarily, seeds which have been cha-rred are retrieved from ovens, bins andfloors, where their processing or pre-paration entailed the use of a fire. In-terpretation is thus biased towards thepreservation of plants that require firefor processing and preparation or thosewhich become accidently charred (Mi-ller 1990:75) Typically, as Knörzer(1971 in Fuller, McClatchie and Ste-vens in press) noted, the most commoncomponents of an assemblage then arecereal crops, chaff and weed seeds. Itmust be remembered that the macro-fossils identified within an assemblagerepresent a very small part of the plantworld which the inhabitants of the Tellwould have known and utilised.

4. Theory and Methods of Archaeo-botanical Analysis

Initial identifications of the assem-blage were made using a variety of li-terary and digital sources, includingJacomet et al. (2006), Van Zeist andBakker-Heeres (1985), Nesbitt (2006)and Zohary and Hopf (1994). These

aided in the general assignation of theseeds to families and, in some cases, togenera. Further in-depth identificationwas then carried out with particularemphasis on comparisons with the re-ference collections in the Institute ofArchaeology. The second part of thestudy focussed on the analysis of theidentified seeds; the method of analy-sis incorporated the studies of Hillman(1981), (Jones (1987a), van der Veen(2007) and van der Veen and Jones(2006). The basis of this method wasethnobotanical information which Hill-man and Jones gleaned from studyingtraditional agricultural societies andtheir means of harvesting, crop-proces-sing and subsequent storage of crops.The studies revealed that these activi-ties incorporated a number of steps andthat each step could be tracked in thearchaeological record by the relativefrequency of grain, weeds and chaffpresent. The main steps comprise: 1)threshing/winnowing, 2) coarse sievingand 3) fine sieving. The by-products ofthe stages, as well as the resultant cleangrain at the end of the process, are thoseplants and parts which are likely tocome into contact with fire through fuelstores, parching, routine processing andaccidents (van der Veen 1992:81). Theyare therefore the most likely parts to be-come preserved and discovered duringexcavation and sampling.

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5. Initial Identification and Analysis

• Early Bronze Age oven Two of the samples (396 and 401) wereretrieved from an Early Bronze Ageoven, which was located in a domesticcourtyard. The charred macrofossilsidentified were those of cereal grain,weed seeds and chaff. Cereal and chaffspecies included Hordeum sp. (barley;probably 2-row), Triticum monococ-cum (einkorn), Tr. dicoccum (emmer)and Tr. durum (durum wheat). The rare‘striate/sturdy emmeroid’ wheat was

also present, in spikelet form (Jones etal. 2000; Fuller 2009:37).

Two grains of possible Secale cereal(rye) were noted in the assemblage; al-though there is evidence in the NearEast of this crop being cultivated (Hill-man 2000:392), it was probably moreof a persistent field-weed (Zohary andHopf 1994:72). Similarly, Aegilops sp.(goat-faced grass) is typically treated asa weed in archaeobotanical assembla-ges. However, here it is found in almostthe same relative proportion as that of

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Crop-processing steps and the by-products which form archaeobotanical assemblages (after Stevens2003:63)

By understanding the stages and plotting the assemblage against each stage in the form of the statisti-cal analysis of relative taxa frequencies, it should be possible to infer how a society organised harves-

ting and how their crops were stored (Fuller et al. in press). This has important implications forsocietal organisation, scheduling of labour and risk-management strategies. This theory has been fur-ther reworked by Stevens (2003), van der Veen and Jones (2006) and Reddy (1997), among others.

The method of statistical analysis used in this paper is directly based on van der Veen and Jones(2006).


barley and its sturdiness, similar sizeand appearance of the chaff and grainto the latter suggests that it may havebeen used in the Near East for morethan is currently understood (Moulinspers. comm. 2010.). Small Fabaceaesuch as Trigonella sp. and Astragalussp. were also present, as well as weedyPoaceae species which included Fes-tuca sp. and Taeniatherum sp. (Nesbitt2006). Vitis vinifera (grape), Brassicasp. (mustard) and Capparis sp. (capers)were also noted.

• Early Bronze Age binThe charred contents of a bin (397),which was located in the same court-yard as the oven, contained varyingproportions of seeds, weeds and chafffrom the oven contents. Large Poaceaeweed seeds dominated the assemblageand there was a large number of glu-mes and spikelets of goat-faced grasspresent.

There was a small amount of charredbarley caryopses, but only three barleyrachises were identified. Glume whe-ats included emmer and the new‘striate/sturdy emmeroid’. Wheat chaffwas almost triple that of the grain andthere was a number of culms and culmnodes present.

Grape pips were identified; as werefragments of Vicia/Lathyrus/Pisum sp.(vetch/sweet pea/pea). Some of thesespecies are recognised as crops in their

own right; however, it is not clear whe-ther vetch was a crop-plant or weed atthis time (van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres1985:309). There were also a largenumber of smaller legumes, such asMedicago sp. and Trigonella sp.

• Early and Middle Bronze Age Floors Two samples were retrieved from floorsamples. Floor 1 (402) was associatedwith the Early Bronze Age, whileFloor 2 (412) was located in the Mid-dle Bronze Age levels. They differedgreatly in composition and rate of de-position. While Floor 1 was sub-sam-pled due to the large variety visibleduring initial scanning, Floor 2 yieldedonly thirty-nine seeds.

Cereal grain and weed counts werefound in similar numbers in Floor 1;they made up more than half of thetotal assemblage. There were threetimes more barley grain than chaff inthis sample, but this may be a preser-vation bias. Emmer and ‘striate/sturdyemmeroid’spikelet forks were found.Free-threshing bread wheat grains anda minimal amount of rachises wereidentified. Weedy Poaceae species in-cluded Festuca sp. Bromus sp. and Ere-mopyrum sp., which are generallysuggestive of disturbed ground andcrop fields (Nesbitt 2006). Goat-facedgrass were also present here in bothchaff and grain form

Large Fabaceae species were noted in

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44

greater quantities than in the oven orbin contexts. Cultivated pea was iden-tified; the other fragments were toocharred to identify beyond theVicia/Lathyrus/Pisum sp. grouping.Mustard, Papaver sp. (poppy) andRubus sp. were also present. Otherseeds noted included Valerianella sp.(corn-salad) and Galium sp. (bedstraw)

The sample retrieved from MiddleBronze Age Floor 2 was dominated byweeds, with minimal taxa varieties.There were low frequencies of barleyand there was no wheat present in grainor chaff form.

Possible edible food-plants were pre-sent in the form of bedstraw and Rumexsp. (docks) Dennell (1976) consideredGalium aparnine (cleavers) to be ofeconomic importance and also sugges-ted similar evidence for the use ofRumex crispus (curly/yellow) as a sto-red crop and minor component ofwheat, barley and legume crops.

There were only a small number ofweeds present, which mainly compri-sed small legumes, such as Trigonellasp. and Medicago sp. A single grain ofrye was probably also a weed.

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Relative frequencies of components within EBAsamples

Relative frequencies of components withinMBA samples

• Middle Bronze Age Store RoomOne sample taken from the MiddleBronze Age storeroom (Storage 1)comprised only fully cleaned grains ofbarley grains, while the second (Sto-rage 2) contained 96% clean grain.

There no other weed seeds, cereals orchaff associated with Storage 1 apartfrom barley and it is probably a pri-

mary context (Schiffer 1976; Hubbardand Clapham 1992).

Storage 2 contained two asymmetricalbarley caryopses, although intense firemay have caused this distortion. Therewas only one rachis fragment noted.One emmer grain and glume were alsoidentified. There were a few culmnodes within the sample also. A mini-


mal amount of goat-faced grass seedsand chaff were present.

6. Secondary Analysis: ‘Routes ofEntry’

The samples were retrieved from spa-tially and temporally varying contexts.In order to make meaningful compari-sons between samples it is necessary tounderstanding how the sample was for-med. There are a number of considera-tions to take into account, whichinclude understanding whether thelayer was of a primary or secondaryformation (Hubbard and Schiffer 1976;Hubbard and Clapham 1992), unders-tanding the rate of deposition, differen-tial preservation between plant partsand hulled and naked varieties (Board-man and Jones 1990) over-representa-tion of taxa with many seeds.

The method used in this study for un-derstanding the ‘route of entry’ of themacrofossils is based upon a tables pre-sented by van der Veen and Jones(2006:223). Essentially, the contents ofthe samples from Shiyukh Tahtani havebeen calculated as ratios in order to de-termine the ‘mode of entry’.

Preparation for the analysis includedthe division of the indeterminate cere-als by the ratio of wheat and barley inthe samples and the addition of these toeach genus accordingly (van der Veen1992:82). Wheat grains were domina-

ted by emmer and therefore emmer,‘striate/sturdy emmeroid’ and einkornwere counted together. Barley was tre-ated as a free-threshing species as it be-haves in a similar manner tofree-threshing wheats during proces-sing (Hillman 1981). The glume baseratio in the table below is based uponthe actual plant parts, as wheat spike-lets are made up of two glumes and twograins, therefore the ratio is 2:2 or 1.

The results of the analysis can be seenin the table below.

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Overview of the Results of ‘Routesof Entry’ Analysis

This is only an overview of the resultsof the analysis as work is on-going.The ‘routes of entry’ analysis indicatesthe differences between the origins ofeach sample.

• Early Bronze Age The samples from the Early BronzeAge (396-402) were extremely mixedand demonstrated various ‘routes ofentry’. The rate of deposition in thesesamples reflects a build-up over time

indicating routine processes. Theoven samples (396 and 401) contai-ned by-products from early proces-sing stages, including culm nodesand rachis internodes, as well as thespikelets, glume bases and largeweed seeds which indicate later pro-cessing stages.

It can be suggested that the wastefrom threshing and winnowing wasgathered and used to fuel the ovens;alternatively, the grains were storedafter being semi-processed and werethen routinely cleaned in the court-

(After Van der Veen and Jones (2006:223)


yard when needed, with the wastebeing discarded into the fire. Thelevel of crop-processing carried out atthe time of harvest would probablyhave been determined by the amountof people available. In this case, itwould suggest that harvesting was ca-rried out on a small scale for domes-tic use, suggesting low levels ofsocietal organisation or control. Thiswas compounded by the fact that thesamples also contained waste fromlater processing stages, which indica-tes that final cleaning also took placein the courtyard.

There was a high level of wheat rachisas compared to grains; however therewere more barley grains and chaffpresent. It was probably the case thatbarley was consumed more frequentlythan wheat as the latter was a hardergrain to grow and was probably vie-wed as more of a commodity.

The content of the sample retrievedfrom the bin (397) is similar to thosefrom the oven. It comprised a mixtureof both early and late crop-processingwaste, in the form of cereal strawnodes, rachis internodes (mainlywheat), glume wheat bases andweeds. This assemblage contained thehighest ratio of small to large weedseeds among the Early Bronze Agesamples. While bins are often consi-dered to be storage items in SyrianTells, it seems likely that this feature

was used to hold discarded wastefrom processing and fire rake-outs.This is the likeliest way that charredchaff, weeds and grains from all sta-ges of processing were found here.

The sample from Floor 1 (402) diffe-red to that of the previous samples.There was a variety of species foundhere, but a large amount was made upby barley and wheat grain and chaff.It would appear therefore that grainwas stored in this room in spikeletsand hulls. There was evidence ofearly stages of processing, while theratio of weed to grain present suggeststhat there was either accidental dis-card of weeds brought in with the har-vest or that an initial phase of sievingwas carried out here. The lack of largeweed seeds suggested that final hand-sorting were carried out elsewhere;perhaps close to a domestic oven orfire.

The results of the analysis of thesesamples reflect the Early Bronze Agedomestic contexts and settings. Thegrain appears to have been harvestedby a small number of people, storedin its glumes and hulls and routinelyprocessed beside the fire when nee-ded. The processing waste was usedas either fuel or was simply discardedinto the fire. This indicates that the in-habitants of the Tell in this periodwere not communally harvesting orstoring their grain, which suggests

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that it may have been a loosely-orga-nized domestic economy.

• Middle Bronze Age However, the findings from the Mid-dle Bronze Age samples indicate thatthe harvesting process and organiza-tion of the Tell may have changed sig-nificantly by this time.

The three samples (304, 403 and 412)were formed extremely rapidly,through probable accidental confla-gration. Storage 1 (304) containedbarley grains only. These were pro-cessed elsewhere and stored here. Thefire destroyed grains which were pro-bably a valuable commodity and hadbeen stored here for either strategicpurposes in case of future bad har-vests or for future trading.

Storage 2 (403) contained a minimalamount of processing waste. The lat-ter comprised straw nodes, rachis in-ternodes (mainly wheat), glumewheat bases and weed seeds. The lar-ger and persistent goat-faced grasswas present, suggesting that hand-sor-ting was carried out here.

The sample from Floor 2 (412) wasalso formed rapidly. There was only aminimal amount of processing wastepresent, albeit early and late stageswere represented. A notable presenceof goat-faced grass grains suggest thatthis may have been more commonly

consumed than is currently believed.It may have been used to bulk upflours and animal feed and could havebeen purposely stored with the cleangrain.

The analyses of the Middle BronzeAge samples suggest that there is ashift in crop-processing and storagefrom that of the Early Bronze Age.The predominantly clean grains indi-cate that crops were being processedto a greater extent than previously andin a different location to where theywere stored. It suggests that theremay have been greater mobilisationof people at harvest-time and thatgrains were perhaps communally sto-red in a fully-processed state ratherthan semi-processed which necessita-ted routine cleaning. The results couldsuggest a change from a domesticeconomy to one based upon a moreorganised hierarchy, who were thin-king towards the future in both socialand economic terms.

The contexts and general settings wi-thin which the samples were retrievedwould also suggest similar conclu-sions. The Early Bronze Age levelsconsisted of domestic buildings withrectangular rooms and attached court-yards, while the Middle Bronze Agebuildings were constructed along dif-ferent axes and in a differing form.The former revealed domestic ovensand bins, while quernstones, storage

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jars, rich furnishing and storage sealswere found in the latter period.

7. Conclusions

Identification and analysis was ca-rried out on seven samples retrievedfrom excavations in Tell Shiyukh Tah-tani, Syria. The assemblages consis-ted of varying proportions of grains,chaff, weeds, oil and fruit-seeds.

The analysis sought to determine the‘routes of entry’ of each sample inorder to understand the origins of thesample formation, as well as indica-ting comparisons or changes betweencontexts and periods.

Initial findings suggest that EarlyBronze Age crops were semi-proces-sed during the harvest and stored inspikelets. The grains were processedin the domestic courtyard when nee-ded and the waste was discarded intothe fire or bin. The samples retrievedfrom the Middle Bronze Age contextssuggest that a change had occurred inthe way the inhabitants were proces-sing and storing their grain. Highnumbers of almost fully clean grainsuggests a more organised society,which mobilised for harvest and sto-red clean grains in centralized non-domestic rooms for future calamitiesor trading purposes.

Identification and analysis of additio-nal samples is ongoing and thereforethis is only an initial assessment.

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Documents

Seeds and statistics at tell Shiyukh Tahtani, Syria...(1981), (Jones (1987a), van der Veen (2007) and van der Veen and Jones (2006). The basis of this method was ethnobotanical information