Combining functional weed ecology and crop stable isotope ratios to identify cultivation intensity: a comparison of cereal production regimes in Haute Provence, France and Asturias, Spain

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• 作者：Amy Bogaard ; John Hodgson ; Erika Nitsch…
• 关键词：Archaeobotany ; Weed ecology ; Stable isotopes ; Agricultural intensity ; Neolithic
• 刊名：Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：January 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：25
• 期：1
• 页码：57-73
• 全文大小：4,201 KB
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 刊物主题：Earth sciences
  Geology
  Anthropology
  
• 出版者：Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
• ISSN：1617-6278

文摘

This investigation combines two independent methods of identifying crop growing conditions and husbandry practices—functional weed ecology and crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis—in order to assess their potential for inferring the intensity of past cereal production systems using archaeobotanical assemblages. Present-day organic cereal farming in Haute Provence, France features crop varieties adapted to low-nutrient soils managed through crop rotation, with little to no manuring. Weed quadrat survey of 60 crop field transects in this region revealed that floristic variation primarily reflects geographical differences. Functional ecological weed data clearly distinguish the Provence fields from those surveyed in a previous study of intensively managed spelt wheat in Asturias, north-western Spain: as expected, weed ecological data reflect higher soil fertility and disturbance in Asturias. Similarly, crop stable nitrogen isotope values distinguish between intensive manuring in Asturias and long-term cultivation with minimal manuring in Haute Provence. The new model of cereal cultivation intensity based on weed ecology and crop isotope values in Haute Provence and Asturias was tested through application to two other present-day regimes, successfully identifying a high-intensity regime in the Sighisoara region, Romania, and low-intensity production in Kastamonu, Turkey. Application of this new model to Neolithic archaeobotanical assemblages in central Europe suggests that early farming tended to be intensive, and likely incorporated manuring, but also exhibited considerable variation, providing a finer grained understanding of cultivation intensity than previously available.