Dear All
I am forwarding a question from Andrew Clarke about bottle gourd and I
would be interested in your answers as well!! In particular any answer
on the shapes of bottle gourd seed fragments from NEar East and African
excavations!
best wishes from Basel
Angela
*Von:* [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
*Gesendet:* Montag, 13. April 2009 00:37
*An:* [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
*Betreff:* RE: workshop Turkey
Dear Benjamin and Hakan,
When I thought I might be able to attend the workshop one of the things
I wanted to talk about was the presence of bottle gourd (//Lagenaria
siceraria//) in the Fertile Crescent. Specifically, whether any of the
archaeobotanists have come across bottle gourd remains (seeds or rind
fragments) while working in the area.
I am currently developing a model for global bottle gourd dispersal. The
bottle gourd is thought to have originated in Africa but is found in
domesticated form in China/Japan by about 10,000 yr BP. This means
either it was domesticated outside of East Asia (e.g., in Africa or the
Middle East) but spread there as a domesticate, or it spread to East
Asia as a wild plant and was subsequently domesticated. Under the first
scenario (and also possibly the second one), it is possible that bottle
gourd was present in the Fertile Crescent at the same time cereals were
being domesticated.
At the moment I only have bottle gourd as early as 4,000 yr BP in Egypt,
Zambia and South Africa, and I have no dates at all for the Middle East.
I wanted to ask you both if you know of any bottle gourd in Fertile
Crescent archaeological sites, or alternatively the contact details of
archaeobotanists/archaeologists working in the area who might be able to
help.
Thanks for your help, and best wishes for a successful workshop.
Cheers,
Andrew
--
Dr. Angela Schlumbaum
Archaeobiology
Lecturer Biomolecular Archaeology
Institute of Prehistory and Archaeological Science
University of Basel
Spalenring 145
CH-4055 Basel
Tel.: 0041 61 201 02 18
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