Harvest Techniques: Hand-Pulling and Its Potential Impact on the Archaeobotanical Record Vis a Vis Near Eastern Plant Domestication

Abstract

A “cultivation prior to domestication”, or a “pre-domestication cultivation” phase features in many reconstructions of Near Eastern plant domestication. Archaeobotanists who accept this notion search for evidence to support the assumption regarding a wild plant’s cultivation phase, which in their view, preceded and eventually led to plant domestication. The presence of non-crop plant remains in the archaeobotanical record interpreted as arable weeds, i.e., weeds of cultivation, is viewed as a strong argument in support of the pre-domestication cultivation phase. Herein, we show that the simple practice of harvest by hand-pulling (uprooting) has the potential to secure an almost weed-free harvest. Indeed, rather clean (weed-free) Neolithic seed caches from a range of relevant sites were documented in archaeobotanical reports. These reports, alongside ethnographic observations suggest that (in certain cases) ancient harvest may have been carried out by selective hand-pulling. Hence, one has no reason to view archaeobotanical assemblages from occupation sites as fully representative of cultivated fields. Therefore, the concept of “arable—pre-domestication weeds”, its logic, and its potential contribution to the prevailing reconstructions of Near Eastern plant domestication need be reconsidered.

A Time to Sow, a Time to Reap: Modifications to Biological and Economic Rhythms in Southwest Asian Plant and Animal Domestication

“…Thus, it has been estimated that following deliberate cultivation of wild wheat, full morphological domestication, i.e., spikelet non-shattering, could have evolved within 20-200 years [3]. However, the current archaeobotanical consensus view is that this process actually took millennia [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]; but see [18][19][20]. Over this time scale, various other traits related to seasonality have been selected for, affecting different stages of the plant life cycle (Figure 1).…”