Millets and Cereal Meals from the Early Iron Age Underwater Settlement of “Gran Carro” (Bolsena Lake, Central Italy)

Ana Fundurulic, Ilenia Valenti, Alessandra Celant, Barbara Barbaro, Mafalda Costa, Ana Manhita, Egidio Severi, Cristina Barrocas Dias and Donatella Magri
Additional contact information
Ana Fundurulic: Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Ilenia Valenti: Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Alessandra Celant: Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Barbara Barbaro: Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la Provincia di Viterbo e per l’Etruria Meridionale, Via Cavalletti, 2, 00186 Rome, Italy
Mafalda Costa: HERCULES Laboratory, University of Évora, 7000-809 Evora, Portugal
Ana Manhita: HERCULES Laboratory, University of Évora, 7000-809 Evora, Portugal
Egidio Severi: Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la Provincia di Viterbo e per l’Etruria Meridionale, Via Cavalletti, 2, 00186 Rome, Italy
Cristina Barrocas Dias: HERCULES Laboratory, University of Évora, 7000-809 Evora, Portugal
Donatella Magri: Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: Archeobotanical materials recovered from pottery vessels originating from the underwater archeological site of “Gran Carro”, located in Central Italy on the shore of Bolsena Lake, were analyzed to obtain new insight into the agricultural habits present in this Iron Age settlement. The archeobotanical study of cereal remains was combined with analytical data obtained from an amorphous organic residue using optical microscopy, SEM-EDS, ATR/FT-IR and Py-GC/MS. The cereal remains of emmer wheat ( Triticum dicoccum ), barley ( Hordeum vulgare ), broomcorn millet ( Panicum miliaceum ), and foxtail millet ( Setaria italica ) were identified as the preferred crops used for food and/or fodder at the site. The presence of charred millets, which have been directly dated by AMS, confirms consumption at the site and adds to the little-known background of millet use in central Italy. The find of millets in a perilacustrine pile-dwelling during a period when the water level of the Bolsena Lake was several meters lower than at present, attesting to a general dry period, suggests that the cultivation of millets, complementing more productive crops of wheat and barley, may have been favored by the availability of a large seasonally dry coastal plain, characterized by poor and sandy soils unsuitable for more demanding cereals.

Keywords: archeobotany; chemical analysis; villanovan pile-dwelling; Latium; foodstuff; organic residue; Panicum; Setaria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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