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Plantstone/Phytoliths

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Penske666 (U9181113) on Friday, 5th September 2008

  How many archaeologists employ this technology along with pollen samples in their work.
  
  I've only come across this carbon harbouring part of a plant today so no nothing about it but understand it is used somewhere in the field.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 5th September 2008

  They have been used to determine the diet of the once owners of excavated skeletal remains. They are also used to determine what foods were prepared for consumption in ancient hearths, some going back to neolithic times. In Iraq they used phytoliths in determining what plants proliferated in Babylon in an attempt to deduce what the legendary "hanging gardens" actually consisted of. The findings were inconclusive - a blend of indigenous decorative plants and crops, like in any city of the time.
  
  They are of more use however to palaeonthologists who use them to deduce and map changes in vegetation patterns over many millennia.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Friday, 5th September 2008

  Hi Penske666,
  
  Phytoliths are silica, not carbon, harbouring plant bodies. Their analysis is quite widely used in archaeology.
  
  In their attempts to understand the spread of plants in the past archaeobotanists use macrofossils, pollen and phytoliths. A common form of macrofossil is the charred grain which, naturally, is informative on cereal crops. Pollen analysis is especially helpful in determining plant transitions, like forestation and de-forestation but some important crops actually release relatively little pollen into the air.
  
  Silica phytoliths are extremely durable. Famously maize and rice have characteristic phytoliths so that archaeobotanists studying these crops would search for them in suitable deposits.
  
  TP

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