Table of Contents

Participants; Preface; Christine Sievers - Sedges from Sibudu, South Africa: Evidence for their Use; Gerlinde Bigga and Stefanie Kahlheber - From Gathering to Agricultural Intensification: Archaeobotanical Remains from Mege, Chad Basin, NE Nigeria; Jacob Morales, Juan Francisco Navarro-Mederos and Amelia Rodriguez-Rodriguez - Plant Offerings to the Gods: Seed Remains from a Pre-Hispanic Sacrificial Altar in La Gomera Island (Canary Islands, Spain); Ursula Thanheiser - Island of the Blessed: 8000 Years of Plant Exploitation in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt; Ahmed G. Fahmy, Renee Friedman and Mohamed A. Fadl - Economy and Ecology of Predynastic Hierakonpolis, Egypt: Archaeobotanical Evidence from a Trash Mound at HK11C; Elena Marinova, Gertrud J.M. van Loon, Marleen De Meyer and Harco Willems - Plant Economy and Land Use in Middle Egypt during the Late Antique/Early Islamic Period: Archaeobotanical Analysis of Mud Bricks and Mud Plasters from the Area of Dayr al-Barsha; Rim Hamdy and Nesrin M.N. El Hadidi - Identification of Plant Materials used in the Coiled Basketry Collection at the Agricultural Museum (Giza, Egypt); Kai Uwe Radomski and Katharina Neumann - Grasses and Grinding Stones: Inflorescence Phytoliths from Modern West African Poaceae and Archaeological Stone Artefacts; Hugo R. Oliveira, Diane L. Lister and Martin K. Jones - Phylogeography of Cereal Landraces and the Spread of Agriculture in Northwest Africa: Review and Prospects; Linda Olmi, Anna Maria Mercuri, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Stefano Biagetti, Sarah Fordyce, Enrico Cappellini, Isabella Massamba N'siala and Savino di Lernia - Morphological and Genetic Analyses of Early and Mid Holocene Wild Cereals from the Takarkori Rockshelter (Central Sahara, Libya): First Results and Prospects; Christopher Ehret - A Linguistic History of Cultivation and Herding in Northeastern Africa; Birgit Ricquier and Koen Bostoen Stirring up the Porridge: How Early Bantu Speakers Prepared their Cereals; A. Catherine D'Andrea and Pamela Wadge - T'ef (Eragrostis tef): A Legacy of Pastoralism?

About the Author

"Windows on the African Past nicely captures the diversity of approaches used in this growing field [African Archaeobotany] and is a must-read for anyone seriously interested the role of plants in African history." Amanda L. Logan, University of Michigan, USA (Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, vol. 47 (3), 2012).

Reviews

"This book is the newest addition to a series of volumes resulting from the International Workshop for African Archaeobotany meetings held every two years since 1994 [...] Windows on the African Past [...] is an important addition to the growing corpus of knowledge on ancient African plant use. This particular volume includes a diverse array of analytical techniques and data sources that open several 'windows' on past people and plant interactions and pave the way for their future study. [...] Windows on the African Past nicely captures the diversity of approaches used in this growing field and is a must-read for anyone seriously interested the role of plants in African history." --Amanda L. Logan, University of Michigan, USA, (Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 47 (3) 2012). "In terms of the study of past human plant use and archaeological plant remains, Africa is the least studied continent. A new volume on African archaeobotany is therefore a welcome addition to a small but growing literature. [...] This volume represents an eclectic vision of archaeobotany, including chapters on phylogeography based on modern landrace genetics, historical linguistics (two chapters), ethnoarchaeology, as well as studies of phytoliths, wood charcoal and the dominant study of archaeological seed remains. --Dorian Q. Fuller, University College London, UK (Journal of African Archaeology 11 (1) 2013).