Macroremains

"The Europe wide spread of what has been called the Bell Beaker phenomenon remains an enigma of
European prehistory. While most of the recent research stresses the ideological aspects of using Bell
Beaker material culture, here we take a regional and economical perspective. We look for the
chronological relationships and the economic choices of the Bell Beaker phase and of its closest
neighbours in time and space: the Late Neolithic Corded Ware and the Early Bronze Age. We focus on
the regional archaeological settlement history and present the hitherto richest European Bell Beakerassociated
collection of palaeobotanical macro-remains, together with our high-resolution palynological
work on annually laminated lake sediments. These different lines of evidence are tied together by an
absolute chronology derived from new radiocarbon accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) dates (now
more than 200) and from the dendrodates from the World Heritage wet preserved pile dwellings. We show
the preceding Late Neolithic, the actual Bell Beaker, and the following Early Bronze age economies each
relying on different agricultural strategies that focus on distinct parts of the landscape. There is no link
obvious between Late Neolithic and Bell Beaker, but there is between Bell Beaker and Early Bronze Age.
Related to different modes of production, differences in ideology become visible in food preferences as
well as in other parts of the material culture. We conclude that the Bell Beaker economy represents a reorientation
of the mode of production focusing on single, rather small farmsteads which often do not leave
a distinct signal in the archaeological record."

This article concerns discovery of fortification remains – a ditch and a fragment of a front stone wall at Hradčanské square in Prague 1-Hradčany. This is the first clear evidence of the fortification existence to the west from today’s Prague castle. Archaeological excavations are described in detail with interpretations concerning the infilling and deterioration of the ditch. Pollen and macroremains analysis of the ditch fill are included with their results summarized together. The second part of the article is an overview of current knowledge of
the pre-Romanesque fortification of the Prague left bank with highlighting unpublished data from Hradčany. The final discussion points at problems of interrelation between the Prague castle, Malá Strana and Hradčany.

A multi proxy approach was applied in the reconstruction of the architecture of Medieval horse stable architecture, the maintenance practices associated with that structure as well as horse alimentation at the beginning of 13th century in Central Europe. Finally, an interpretation of the local vegetation structure along Morava River, Czech Republic is presented. The investigated stable experienced two construction phases. The infill was well preserved and its composition reflects maintenance practices. The uppermost part of the infill was composed of fresh stabling, which accumulated within a few months at the end of summer. Horses from different backgrounds were kept in the stable and this is reflected in the results of isotope analyses. Horses were fed meadow grasses as well as woody vegetation, millet, oat, and less commonly hemp, wheat and rye. Three possible explanations of stable usage are suggested. The stable was probably used on a temporary basis for horses of workers emplo...

The End Neolithic period is often discussed as a phase of settlement expansion into marginal sandy areas. A reliable water supply must have been a crucial factor in this settlement process, especially in the dry regions of Central Germany where the study site is located. In this investigation, we present the results of palaeobotanical, sedi-mentological and archaeological analyses performed on three small well features dating from approx. 2600 to 2135 cal BC, i.e. associated with the Corded Ware Culture. Remains of charred pieces of cereal , charcoal, artefacts, as well as the presence of pollen types indicative for ruderal vegetation prove that the refill process of these wells occurred in the context of local settlement activities. In spite of their small extent and existence as not necessarily continuous bodies of water, these small structures may have nevertheless been sufficient enough to sustain a small community over a longer period of time. Our results question the vulnerability of End Neolithic societies to small-scaled hydrological changes and challenge the idea of climatic changes being the decisive drivers of settlement dynamics.

A multi proxy approach was applied in the reconstruction of the architecture of Medieval horse stable architecture, the maintenance practices associated with that structure as well as horse alimentation at the beginning of 13th century in Central Europe. Finally, an interpretation of the local vegetation structure along Morava River, Czech Republic is presented. The investigated stable experienced two construction phases. The infill was well preserved and its composition reflects maintenance practices. The uppermost part of the infill was composed of fresh stabling, which accumulated within a few months at the end of summer. Horses from different backgrounds were kept in the stable and this is reflected in the results of isotope analyses. Horses were fed meadow grasses as well as woody vegetation, millet, oat, and less commonly hemp, wheat and rye. Three possible explanations of stable usage are suggested. The stable was probably used on a temporary basis for horses of workers employed at the castle, courier horses and horses used in battle.

Акцентируется внимание на оценке возможностей и результативности трех палеоботанических подходов (карпологического, пыльцевого и фитолитного анализов) в поиске аргументов древнего просяного земледелия в культурых слоях археологических памятников Приамурья и Приморья. Карпологический метод оказался наиболее эффективным. Палинологический анализ продемонстрировал возможность идентификации пыльцы итальянского проса. Анализ фитолитов показал присутствие среди фитолитов неидентифицируемых биоморф культурных растений.
The spread of agriculture to the south of the Russian Far East from the core region (Northern China) has been proved by the ar-chaeobotanical data for the Zaisanovka Late Neolithic culture only. There is no doubt that we need to continue further search of di-rect evidence of agriculture, its dissemination and composition of cultural plants for other archaeological cultures in the region. But the lack of archaeobotanists in Russia seriously limits such studies. This article focuses attention on the three archaeobotanical meth-ods tested on the archaeological sites in the Primorye and the Amur River region for detecting crop remains and simultaneously min-imizing effort for this. We compared capabilities and effectiveness of carpological, pollen and phytolith analysis for finding plant remains in two settlements near the Osinovoye Lake (Priamurye) and the Risovaya-4 site (Primorye). Carpological analysis showed high effectiveness. Identified seeds of farming plants were found in deposits of two sites. We received new data confirming the exist-ence of a crop complex with two millet species (Panicum miliaceum, Setaria italica), naked barley (Hordeum vulgare var. nudum) and, possibly, soft wheat (Triticum aestivum) in the early Middle Ages of the West Amur River region. Broomcorn and foxtail millet seeds from Risovaya-4 cannot be definitely attributed to the Middle Neolithic layer of this multilayer site. Apparently, they must be correlated with the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age. Effectiveness of pollen and phytolith analysis was significantly lower. Some pollen similar to foxtail millet was found only on the Risovaya-4 site. The obtained result is not convincing, because only little  pollen was found. However, this finding demonstrates a possibility to determine the pollen of cultivated millet in the archaeological layers of the Russian Far East, one of the areas of millet agriculture. Despite the abundance of forests around the ancient settlements,  pollen data does not reveal the large-scale deforestation and pollen of segetal weeds. Thus, the farming fields were not large or were localized at a long distance from the sites. A small amount of phytoliths, morphologically similar to cultivated grains, were found on all sites. But only in one case (in the medieval settlement on the Osinovoye Lake) phytoliths belonging to cultural millet were identi-fied. Identification of most of other phytoliths as cultivated millet species was complicated in most cases, because of the small num- ber of detected forms and similar diagnostic features between phytoliths of broomcorn and foxtail millet. An important condition for a successful search of carpoids and phytoliths of cultivated plants is numerous and oriented sampling in relevant archaeological con-texts. The quality of preservation and abundance of pollen in the soil are serious limiting factors for searching of agriculture traces with this method in the Russian Far East archaeological sites.

We present the results of the charcoal analysis of the site of Irikaitz (Zestoa, Basque Country, Spain). This is an open air site with an archaeological sequence which includes Lower Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic and post-Palaeolithic, the only site so
far with Lower Palaeolithic occupations in primary position in the Basque region. Archaeobotanical studies of these early chronologies in the Iberian Peninsula are particularly scarce. Irikaitz adopted from the beginning of the research project a
systematic sampling strategy and recovery methodology through flotation in order to retrieve all types of plant macro-remains. Some finds have also been hand-picked in situ. Macro-remains recovered at the site present a very good preservation. 2878 charcoal fragments have been analysed. The most important taxon in all samples is Quercus subgenus Quercus (deciduous oaks). Some species possibly linked to wet soils along streams are also very important, such as: Corylus avellana (hazel), Salix (willow) and Fraxinus excelsior (ash). Taxa linked to shrub and open communities have also been identified (Ericaceae, Leguminosae). The general results suggest species living under mild climatic conditions which might correspond to the Eemian or the Holsteinian.