FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS
The Wheat from the Chaff: What we can Learn from Studying Plants in Antiquity
Friends of ASOR present the next webinar in the 2023-2024 season on December 14 2023, at 6:00 pm EST, presented by Dr. Jennifer Ramsay. In the summer of 1994 I embarked on my first archaeological excavation to King Herod’s Palace at the site of Caesarea Maritima in Israel, where I was thrilled to be bestowed with the title of assistant bone person! After excavating many bones that summer, the director took me aside and said, ‘everyone is doing bones, you should study plant remains’. And just like that, an archaeobotanist was born. Little did I know those many years ago that plant remains recovered from archaeological sites could tell us so much about the past.
I spent several summers as an archaeobotanist at Caesarea collecting plant remains. It was there that I discovered the importance of the neglected, but informative, ‘weed’. Many economic crops were recovered that illuminated aspects of the agricultural economy in the ancient city, but it was what the weeds could tell us about the environment, seasonality, and agricultural techniques that I found intriguing. I have since been fortunate to work on projects at sites like Petra, Jordan, where the data from the Petra Garden and Pool Complex addressed the questions of how plants functioned in the economy, and how the role of the garden changed through time.
Additionally, plant remains I analyzed from Nabatean-period tomb deposits in Petra highlighted the role plants played in funerary contexts and contributed to a broader understanding of how they functioned in these ritual events in the ancient world. I have also recovered archaeobotanical data that allowed for a better understanding of the scale and timing of local agricultural production at the ancient site of Bir Madhkur, which lies in the hyper-arid hinterland of Petra. At other sites, for example the Islamic period site of Kinet Höyük in Turkey, the plant remains I analyzed indicated cereal agriculture, but also documented the emergence of a cotton boom, which is attested to in ethnohistorical sources but had rarely been confirmed through archaeobotanical evidence. From examining Neolithic plant remains from the Black Desert in Jordan that indicate a much more verdant environment in the past, to discovering what plants can tell us about provisioning the Roman Army in the East, and even to understanding the role pigeons played in ancient agriculture, plant remains offer vital evidence to our understanding of the past.
The webinar will conclude with a live Q&A session.
Dr. Jennifer Ramsay (Ph.D. in 2008) is Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department at SUNY Brockport (State University of New York). She is active on the Board of Trustees for the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Amman and chairs their Fellowship Committee. Jennifer received the Archaeological Institute of America’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2019 and two State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching (2014) and Excellence in Faculty Service (2020). Her area of expertise centers on the use of archaeobotany for subsistence reconstruction, understanding trade patterns, recognizing environmental change, and interpreting land-use patterns to gain insight into lifeways of past societies. Although she specializes in the Roman and Late Antique world, Jennifer has also analyzed and published archaeobotanical data from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, and Islamic periods. Over her career, she has participated in many archaeological projects in a variety of roles from project archaeobotanist and field school director, to assistant or associate director in Jordan, Israel and Italy at such sites such as Petra, Pompeii and Caesarea Marittima.
This webinar will be recorded and all paid registrants will be sent a link to view the recording.
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All proceeds from this webinar are used to fund scholarships for members as well as increasing ASOR’s online resources, which are free to the public.
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