Pollen as indicator of food consumption from the archaeological sites of the Wadi Teshuinat area (Tadrart Acacus, Libyan Sahara)

Palynology applied to archaeological sciences puts particular emphasis on the pollen produced by plants handled during human activities. In fact, the palynology of archaeological sites (on-site spectra) helps to recognize anthropogenic pollen, and to investigate the human role in exploiting or changing the plant cover near the site. As pollen is mainly transported into the site by humans, and in general only a minor part arrives by air or water, high percentages or concentrations of pollen are indicative of transport of organic matter, including both collections of plants and faeces containing pollen from eaten plants. This poster presents the list of pollen from archaeological sites, and related to food consumption by humans and their domestic animals. 13 archaeological sites were investigated, all of which are located in the Tadrart Acacus, a mountainous area of the Fezzan, in South-Western Libya, and date to the early and middle Holocene. A relationship between pollen accumulation and food plants is evident from the pollen spectra. Emphasis was made on the anthropogenic pollen indicators and grasses. Macroremains of wild cereals (mainly millets such Brachiaria, Urochloa, Panicum, etc.) are particularly abundant in the deposits, and were used as a parallel tool to better understand plant exploitation in this region. During the Holocene, the sites were occupied by pre-Pastoral (hunter-gatherers) and Pastoral (pastoralists) cultures. Different pollen stratigraphies and floras characterised the diverse sites and the relevant cultural phases. At the early Holocene, hunter-gatherers harvested plants for food and, less commonly, for fodder (mainly Panicum type, Artemisia and Typha); at the middle Holocene, pastoralists occupied the sites, and a large part of the deposits were filled with a few wild cereals and many domestic animal excrements (therefore, pollen of grasses, including wild cereals, and Echium were frequent in the spectra).