Orphan crops of archaeology-based crop history research

TY - JOUR

T1 - Orphan crops of archaeology-based crop history research

AU - Fuks, Daniel

AU - Schmidt, Frijda

AU - García-Collado, Maite I.

AU - Besseiche, Margot

AU - Payne, N.

AU - Bosi, Giovanna

AU - Bouchaud, Charlène

AU - Castiglioni, Elisabetta

AU - Dabrowski, Vladimir

AU - Frumin, Suembikya

AU - Fuller, Dorian Q.

AU - Hovsepyan, Roman

AU - Muthukumaran, Sureshkumar

AU - Peña-Chocarro, Leonor

AU - Jordá, Guillem Pérez

AU - Ros, Jérôme

AU - Rottoli, Mauro

AU - Ryan, Philippa

AU - Spengler, Robert

AU - Stevens, Chris J.

AU - Valamoti, Soultana Maria

AU - Weiss, Ehud

AU - Alexander, Michelle

AU - Gros-Balthazard, Muriel

N1 - Funding Information: This paper is the first output of the Crop History Consortium (CHC), established at a seed meeting funded by the Higher Education, Research and Innovation (HERI) Department of the French Embassy in London. The authors would like to thank Marta Mazzanti for the data that her archaeobotanical research in Italy has provided; Barbara Proserpio and Hadas Fuks for database assistance; Dragana Filipovic for advice on wheat taxonomy; Miriam Roche and Nahshon Roche for editing assistance; and the Cambridge Archaeobotany Group and three anonymous reviewers whose comments helped improve the paper significantly. We would also like to thank Prof. Mustafa Bayram, Yu‐chun Kan, Basira Mir‐Makhamad, Marta Moreno‐García and Hugo R. Oliveira for assistance in translating the social impact statement. M.I.G.C. is funded by the Government of the Basque Country (POS_2020_1_0006, IT1442‐22) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020‐112506GB‐C41). N.P. is funded by a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and studentships from the Faculty of Classics and Department of Anglo‐Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge. D.F. is funded by a Marie S. Curie International Fellowship (Project CroProLITE, no. 101025677). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Plants, People, Planet published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of New Phytologist Foundation.

PY - 2024/1/13

Y1 - 2024/1/13

N2 - Agrobiodiversity is central to sustainable farming worldwide. Cultivation, conservation and reintroduction of diverse plant species, including ‘forgotten’ and ‘underutilized’ crops, contribute to global agrobiodiversity, living ecosystems and sustainable food production. Such efforts benefit from traditional and historical knowledge of crop plants' evolutionary and cultural trajectories. This review is a first attempt at systematically gauging species representativeness in studies of archaeological plant remains. Results indicate that, in addition to discipline-specific methodological sources of bias, modern agricultural biases may replicate themselves in crop history research and influence understandings of ‘forgotten crops’. Recognizing these biases is an initial stride towards rectifying them and promoting agrobiodiversity in both research and practical applications. Summary: So-called ‘forgotten’ or ‘orphan’ crops are an important component of strategies aimed at preserving and promoting biodiversity. Knowledge of historical cultivation, usage, and geographic and evolutionary trajectories of plants, that is, crop history research, is important for the long-term success of such efforts. However, research biases in the crops chosen for study may present hurdles. This review attempts to systematically identify patterns in crop species representativeness within archaeology-based crop history research. A meta-analysis and synthesis of archaeobotanical evidence (and lack thereof) is presented for 268 species known to have been cultivated for food prior to 1492 CE from the Mediterranean region to South Asia. We identified 39 genera with known crop plants in this geographical and historical context that are currently absent from its archaeobotanical record, constituting ‘orphan’ crops of archaeobotany. In addition, a worldwide synthesis of crop species studied using geometric morphometric, archaeogenetic and stable isotope analyses of archaeological plant remains is presented, and biases in the species represented in these disciplines are discussed. Both disciplinary methodological biases and economic agenda-based biases affecting species representativeness in crop history research are apparent. This study also highlights the limited geographic diffusion of most crops and the potential for deeper historical perspectives on how crops become marginalized and ‘forgotten’.

AB - Agrobiodiversity is central to sustainable farming worldwide. Cultivation, conservation and reintroduction of diverse plant species, including ‘forgotten’ and ‘underutilized’ crops, contribute to global agrobiodiversity, living ecosystems and sustainable food production. Such efforts benefit from traditional and historical knowledge of crop plants' evolutionary and cultural trajectories. This review is a first attempt at systematically gauging species representativeness in studies of archaeological plant remains. Results indicate that, in addition to discipline-specific methodological sources of bias, modern agricultural biases may replicate themselves in crop history research and influence understandings of ‘forgotten crops’. Recognizing these biases is an initial stride towards rectifying them and promoting agrobiodiversity in both research and practical applications. Summary: So-called ‘forgotten’ or ‘orphan’ crops are an important component of strategies aimed at preserving and promoting biodiversity. Knowledge of historical cultivation, usage, and geographic and evolutionary trajectories of plants, that is, crop history research, is important for the long-term success of such efforts. However, research biases in the crops chosen for study may present hurdles. This review attempts to systematically identify patterns in crop species representativeness within archaeology-based crop history research. A meta-analysis and synthesis of archaeobotanical evidence (and lack thereof) is presented for 268 species known to have been cultivated for food prior to 1492 CE from the Mediterranean region to South Asia. We identified 39 genera with known crop plants in this geographical and historical context that are currently absent from its archaeobotanical record, constituting ‘orphan’ crops of archaeobotany. In addition, a worldwide synthesis of crop species studied using geometric morphometric, archaeogenetic and stable isotope analyses of archaeological plant remains is presented, and biases in the species represented in these disciplines are discussed. Both disciplinary methodological biases and economic agenda-based biases affecting species representativeness in crop history research are apparent. This study also highlights the limited geographic diffusion of most crops and the potential for deeper historical perspectives on how crops become marginalized and ‘forgotten’.

KW - agrobiodiversity

KW - archaeobotany

KW - archaeogenetics

KW - archaeology

KW - food crop

KW - geometric morphometrics

KW - stable isotope analysis

KW - underutilized crops

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182477915&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/ppp3.10468

DO - 10.1002/ppp3.10468

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:85182477915

SN - 2572-2611

JO - Plants People Planet

JF - Plants People Planet

ER -