Plant remains from the Late Neolithic settlement of Polgár-Bosnyákdomb

Charred plant remains were recovered at the Polgar-Bosnyakdomb site dated to the Middle Neolithic period (the Tisza–Herpaly–Csőszhalom culture), corresponding to the first half of the Vth millenium BC. Among cultivated plants found as dispersed within the archaeological features and in daub pieces, remains of emmer wheat Triticum dicoccon were the most frequent. Also, leguminous plants were used as demonstrated by seeds of lentil Lens culinaris. Among wild herbaceous plants, taxa of field and ruderal habitats prevailed (Chenopodium type album, Galium spurium, Polygnum mite and Bromus sp.) as well as those coming from dry grasslands (Stipa sp.). The analysis of charcoal remains showed that mostly wood belonging to Quercus sp., Ulmus sp. and Cornus sp. were collected as firewood from the proximity of the settlement, mainly from oak-dominated wooded steppes developed on the elevated surfaces and floodplain forests from the seasonally flooded alluvium. The most frequently found plant remains (Cornus sp. wood and Stipa sp. awns) were dated with the means of radiocarbon analysis and the chronology showed their use at the end of the settlement, toward the middle of the Vth millenium BC.