One of the responsibilities of being a UCCE Master Gardener is to obtain 12 units of Continuing Education each year.  Some of this is accomplished on our own by researching answers to gardening questions the public brings us.  We can also accumulate hours researching a topic that we are going to use for a blog, newsletter, or lecture.  Other times we are invited to attend conferences, field trips, workshops, or presentations.

Recently we got an invitation from the Master Gardeners of Yolo Co. to join their monthly Continuing Education program.  This month was a lecture on Archaeobotany by graduate student researcher Regina Fairbanks.  Wow, who isn't interested in Archaeology? And in relation to plants? Yes, please! I signed up immediately.

Regina explained that plants are culturally important and can both shape and reflect a culture.  By studying ancient plant remains we can better understand past human relationships with plants and get a window into their culture.

Plant remains come in many forms.  Some are visible to the naked eye, macrobotanical, and others are much smaller traces that a plant has left behind, microbotanical.  The macrobotanical remains are most often seeds or pieces of wood, but rarely can be as much as a loaf of bread.  These remains managed to survive to the present time in several ways:  carbonization (it was burnt), desiccation, mineralization (occurred in some ancient latrines), and being waterlogged in a low-oxygen situation that discourages microbes (think Bog Man).

Microbotanical traces include pollen which can survive in archaeologic sediment.  Phytoliths are small silica-based structures that can form in certain plant tissues and remain behind long after the plant tissue has decomposed. They are species specific.  There are also starch granules that can persist on artifacts that can help identify what kind of starchy plant was being used.

Archaeologic plants help researchers reconstruct lived experiences.  When Regina was helping to sort the 25,000 carbonized seeds from an early Bronze Age site, most were barley, a few were threshed wheat grains. But one was a lentil that they could tell had been boiled.  She felt a real connection with the person who had boiled the lentils that day and perhaps spilled a bit, to be uncovered 5000 years later. 

Specific garden archaeology can pose some unique challenges.  Unless there were stone walls, pathways, or fountains; or drawings, paintings or maps, growing grounds can be difficult to locate.  Some of the characteristics that make a garden a good place to grow things, moist good soil with worms and microbes, also make it a good place for things to decompose. Some projects to find and recreate historical gardens here is the United States have been difficult.

Regina showed us that just as we relate to plants in our gardens, our surrounding environment, and that we use in our kitchens, people in ancient times had relationships as well.  Studying these past human plant relationships helps us to assess the similarities and differences from ancient times to ours and to chronicle the changes that have occurred.  This in turn helps us to better understand the journey humankind has experienced.