We analysed the spatio-temporal dynamics of Phoenix dactylifera (date palm) agrobiodiversity in the Negev desert, southern Levant, from the 3rd c. bce to the 10th c. ce . We applied linear measurements and Elliptic Fourier Descriptors to 2294 archaeological seeds from nine sites, and compared them with a modern reference collection of wild and cultivated Phoenix and previously published archaeological assemblages from Egypt an...

This paper aims to provide a robust regional synthesis of crop diffusion in the southern Levant, with the objective of ascertaining the significance of 1st millennium ce introductions, including those associated with Roman Agricultural Diffusion (RAD) and the Islamic Green Revolution (IGR). It does so by integrating published archaeobotanical data and written evidence from multiple periods to identify the earliest attestations...

A key question in archaeobotany concerns the role of herbivore dung in contributing plant remains to archaeobotanical assemblages. This issue has been discussed for at least 40 years and has motivated several archaeobotanical studies on identifying dung-derived deposition of plant remains. Meanwhile, microarchaeological methods have developed and continue to be developed for detecting dung in archaeological sediments, and mult...