Aim  This study intends to improve our understanding of historical biogeography of olive domestication in the Mediterranean Basin, particularly in the north‐western area. Location  Investigations were performed simultaneously on olive stones from extant wild populations, extant cultivated varieties from various Mediterranean countries, and archaeological assemblages of Spanish, French and Italian settlements. Methods  A combination of morphometrics (traditional and geometrical) allowed us to study both the size and shape of endocarp structure. Concerning shape, a size‐standardized method coupled with fitted polynomial regression analysis was performed. Results  We found morphological criteria for discriminating between wild and cultivated olive cultivars, and established patterns of morphological variation of olive material according to the geographical origin (for extant material) and to the age of the olive forms (for archaeological material). Levels of morphological convergences and divergences between wild olive populations and cultivated varieties are presented as evidence. Main conclusions  Morphological changes of endocarps of olive under domestication at both geographical and chronological scales provide new criteria for the identification of olive cultivars. They allow to determine the origins of cultivated forms created and/or introduced in the north‐western Mediterranean regions and to understand how human migrations affected the rest of the Western Mediterranean regions. A model of diffusion of olive cultivation is proposed. It shows evidence of an indigenous origin of the domestication process, which is currently recognized in the north‐western area since the Bronze Age.

The shape and size of grape pips have long been used as criteria in archaeobotany to discriminate wild from cultivated vines. This research is now being conducted so as to extend the set of references to the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean basin on the one hand and to improve morphometrical analysis methods to obtain a characterization going well beyond the simple wild/ cultivated dichotomy on the other hand. Among the cultivated section, the classical morphological approach might allow to distinguish at least two groups of cultivated vine species which have been more or less selected. The first group, which is also the most primitive, appears in Southern France at least as early as the First Iron Age. The soaring of the second group, which is the most productive, is not perceptible before the Modern times at the moment. The integration of carbonized archaeological grape pips in this scheme is backed on an experimental program the aim of which is modelling and correcting the deformation of pips during carbonization. The first results of a new geometrical analysis make us expect a more precise characterization of the genetic and geographic origins of archaeological pips.

No abstract

Des poteaux, des greniers et des graines Une zone de stockage de masse à La Tène C2/D1a au « Clos des Primevères » à Entrammes (Mayenne) ALes structures et le mobilier-B-les macro-restes végétaux

Le comptage des céréales et des légumineuses en carpologie : recensement des méthodes utilisées en France et essais comparatifs sur des assemblages archéobotaniques Counting cereals and pulses in archaeobotany: census of the methods used in France and comparison tests on archaeobotanical assemblages