National Geographic Archaeobotanical at Catalhoyuk

www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9hx353db National Geographic Archeobotanical Final Report- Christine Hastorf and Julie Near (University of California-BerkeleJ~:December 1997 VC6 P6 6 \.Do.lo ~ IL(() The excavations directed by Ian licidder began in 1995 with Christine Hastorf overseeing the archaeobotanical work at the site. Some of the major paleoethnobotanical goals are to gain a detailed understandiqg of use and distribution of wild and domesticated food plants, the range of wild plant us~, the symbolic nature of plant use at the site, especially for food, to study the small seal~ changes of plant deposition by comparing context related variability within and between middens, hearths, and ovens, inside to outside samples from buildings and specific contexts, as well as to track temporal and spatial shifts in plant domesticates. In the field season of 1995, Ann Butler (UCL) built and operated a motorized water flotation system to process the systematically collected soil samples from every excavation unit. This first machine was designed based on a modified Siraf style flotation machine, using a motor to move water the separates the charred plant remains from the soil matrix (French 1971). A 3 horsepower motor was attached to a 55 gallon oil drum. In 1995 the goal was to collect 60 liters of soil from every excavation unit in bulk, point-provenienced collections, although some excavation units produced less than 60 liters. This strategy was to learn about the archaeobotanical densities across the site. Approximately 200 soil samples were collected from the excavations in 1995. Ann Butler processed approximately 90 soil samples in 1995. Ann Butler took the Mellaart samples back to University College London's archaeobotany laboratory, while the north sector building 1 samples went to the University of California-Berkeley archaeobotany laboratory, where Julie Near began to study them. In 1996, beginning with the National Geographic Grant, a new level of processing and analysis was initiated. The goals of the archaeobotanical methodology have been fourfold 1) to determine the effectiveness of the sampling strategies employed to this point at the site as well as gaining a systematic sense of the range and densities of the botanical material on the site, 2) to develop and implement a protocol beginning in the 1996 field season that could collect a representative sample of that data from all contexts and time periods, 3) to analyze the macro botanical samples recovered from the 1996 season that will provide a systematic overview of the excavation areas, and 4) to develop a data base that is flexible enough for many different questions to be asked of the material as well as to connect with the other datasets from the site the and the overall database. Before we began at the site in 1996, the most important question was what the target soil sample size should be such that all samples would be large enough for statistical analysis while conserving excavation and processing time. Also, we needed to learn what the plant density variation was to determine the frequency of sampling necessary to pick up density and taxa variation across space. Looking at the analyzed counts from 30 1995 samples, we concluded before the 1996 field season that a target size of 40 liters, decreased from the 60 liter size in the 1995 season, would be sufficient. Approximately 85 percent of the samples will have 500 botanical items and many would have more than the needed 500. For the denser samples we can subsample in the laboratory. This allows us to collect the rarer taxa as well. The second issue is the