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Plant economy and vegetation of the Iron Age in Bulgaria: archaeobotanical evidence from pit deposits

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Abstract

Major social and economical changes occurred in human societies during the Iron Age of Southeastern Europe: increasing structuring of societies, intensifying production and metal technologies and the establishment of a market economy. However, the related plant economy of the region is still poorly studied and understood. The Iron Age ‘pit field sites’ (groups of pits distributed over a certain area) in south-eastern Bulgaria were recently intensively excavated, and their study provides rich archaeobotanical assemblages, which are used for filling this gap in our knowledge. The current study presents the archaeobotanical information from 196 flotation samples from 50 Iron Age pits. The results show a wide range of annual crops, the most important of which seem to be hulled wheats (mainly einkorn), barley and also millet. A variety of pulses and fruits is retrieved, each in small quantities. Some species like Olea europaea and Cucumis melo are an indication for contacts with adjacent regions (especially the Mediterranean area). The archaeobotanical assemblages also documented the environment and land use, revealing the exploitation of a variety of habitats like cropland, open grassland, shrub land and wetland. The archaeobotanical analyses of the Iron Age pit fields show that this type of structures can be an important source of information on the Iron Age plant economy in the region.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the excavators (Kr. Nikov, Hr. Popov, G. Nehrizov, A. Petrova) for giving us the opportunity to study the archaeobotanical material from their excavations, support during the fieldwork and inspiring discussion of the results. We thank to P. Mudie for correcting the English of the manuscript. Finally, we would like to thank the editor Dorian Fuller and two anonymous reviewers, who provided helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Faculty of History, Sofia University, 15 Tzar Osvoboditel Bd, 1504, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Ivanka Hrisrova

  2. Department of Botany, Faculty of Biology, Sofia University, Dragan Tzankov str. 8, 1164, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Juliana Atanassova

  3. Center for Archaeological Sciences, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, b.2408, 3001, Leuven, Belgium

    Elena Marinova

  4. Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, Vautier str. 29, 1000, Brussels, Belgium

    Elena Marinova

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  1. Ivanka Hrisrova
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  2. Juliana Atanassova
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Correspondence to Elena Marinova.

Electronic Supplementary Material

ESM 1

Overview of a pit-field site (Svilengrad, obekt 26) and some of the pit infills. (images kindly provided by the leading excavator of the site G. Nehrizov). (GIF 482 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 1303 kb)

ESM 2

Table of the archaeobotanical results given by each pit (raw data). (XLSX 167 kb)

ESM 3

The most common and important plant macro remains.1. grain and 2. chaff fragment of Triticum cf. spelta, 3. Panicum milliaceum. 4 Vicia ervilia 5. Vitis vinifera, 6. Lalemantia iberica, 7.Cucumus melo/sativus (scale next to each remain corresponds to 1 mm) (GIF 235 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 1129 kb)

ESM 4

Archaeobotanical remains (absolute counts) distributed by depths from the pits studied at the site Dana Bunar (GIF 38 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 105 kb)

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Hrisrova, I., Atanassova, J. & Marinova, E. Plant economy and vegetation of the Iron Age in Bulgaria: archaeobotanical evidence from pit deposits. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 9, 1481–1494 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0328-x

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