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Agronomy
Special Issues
Pathways to Plant Domestication: New Insights from Archaeobotany
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Pathways to Plant Domestication: New Insights from Archaeobotany

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2022) | Viewed by 9686

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Catherine D'Andrea

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Guest Editor
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A1S6, Canada
Interests: archaeobotany; plant domestication; early agriculture; complex societies; Africa
Dr. Carla Lancelotti

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Guest Editor
CaSEs Research Group, Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and ICREA, 08005 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: archaeobotany; plant physiology; biosilica; ethnoarchaeology; plant management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The domestication of plants and the development of agricultural systems transformed the lives of ancient peoples and provided the nutritional foundation of early civilizations around the world. Archaeobotany, the study of archaeologically preserved ancient plant remains, represents the first line of direct evidence for ancient domestication processes. This Special Issue will highlight recent approaches to understanding plant domestication based on macrobotanical and microbotanical evidence from different world regions and over a variety of time periods. We are soliciting papers that examine ancient plant domestication through archaeobotanical studies based on traditional knowledge; ethnoarchaeology; agroecology; experimental archaeobotany; modeling and simulations based on archaeobotanical data; and aDNA/proteomics.

Prof. Catherine D'Andrea
Dr. Carla Lancelotti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • archaeobotany
  • plant domestication
  • crop evolution

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

23 pages, 4642 KiB  
Review
The Domestication and Dispersal of Large-Fruiting Prunus spp.: A Metadata Analysis of Archaeobotanical Material
by Rita Dal Martello, Madelynn von Baeyer, Mark Hudson, Rasmus G. Bjorn, Christian Leipe, Barbara Zach, Basira Mir-Makhamad, Traci N. Billings, Irene M. Muñoz Fernández, Barbara Huber, Kseniia Boxleitner, Jou-Chun Lu, Ko-An Chi, Hsiao-Lei Liu, Logan Kistler and Robert N. Spengler
Agronomy 2023, 13(4), 1027; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13041027 - 30 Mar 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3896
Abstract
The Prunus genus contains many of the most economically significant arboreal crops, cultivated globally, today. Despite the economic significance of these domesticated species, the pre-cultivation ranges, processes of domestication, and routes of prehistoric dispersal for all of the economically significant species remain unresolved. [...] Read more.
The Prunus genus contains many of the most economically significant arboreal crops, cultivated globally, today. Despite the economic significance of these domesticated species, the pre-cultivation ranges, processes of domestication, and routes of prehistoric dispersal for all of the economically significant species remain unresolved. Among the European plums, even the taxonomic classification has been heavily debated over the past several decades. In this manuscript, we compile archaeobotanical evidence for the most prominent large-fruiting members of Prunus, including peach, apricot, almonds, sloes, and the main plum types. By mapping out the chronology and geographic distributions of these species, we are able to discuss aspects of their domestication and dispersal more clearly, as well as identify gaps in the data and unanswered questions. We suggest that a clearer understanding of these processes will say a lot about ancient peoples, as the cultivation of delayed return crops is an indicator of a strong concept of land tenure and the specialization of these cultivation strategies seems to be tied to urbanism and reliable markets. Likewise, the evolution of domestication traits in long-generation perennials, especially within Rosaceae, represents awareness of grafting and cloning practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pathways to Plant Domestication: New Insights from Archaeobotany)
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20 pages, 2179 KiB  
Review
Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) Domestication and Dispersal Out of Central Asia
by Basira Mir-Makhamad, Rasmus Bjørn, Sören Stark and Robert N. Spengler
Agronomy 2022, 12(8), 1758; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12081758 - 26 Jul 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 5136
Abstract
The pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is commercially cultivated in semi-arid regions around the globe. Archaeobotanical, genetic, and linguistic data suggest that the pistachio was brought under cultivation somewhere within its wild range, spanning southern Central Asia, northern Iran, and northern Afghanistan. Historically, [...] Read more.
The pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is commercially cultivated in semi-arid regions around the globe. Archaeobotanical, genetic, and linguistic data suggest that the pistachio was brought under cultivation somewhere within its wild range, spanning southern Central Asia, northern Iran, and northern Afghanistan. Historically, pistachio cultivation has primarily relied on grafting, suggesting that, as with many Eurasian tree crops, domestication resulted from genetically locking hybrids or favored individuals in place. Plant domestication and dispersal research has largely focused on weedy, highly adaptable, self-compatible annuals; in this discussion, we present a case study that involves a dioecious long-lived perennial—a domestication process that would have required a completely different traditional ecological knowledge system than that utilized for grain cultivation. We argue that the pistachio was brought under cultivation in southern Central Asia, spreading westward by at least 2000 years ago (maybe a few centuries earlier to the mountains of modern Syria) and moved eastward only at the end of the first millennium AD. The seeds remain rare in archaeological sites outside its native range, even into the mid-second millennium AD, and may not have been widely cultivated until the past few hundred years. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pathways to Plant Domestication: New Insights from Archaeobotany)
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