ºÚÁÏÉçÇø

Lorenzo Castellano (Brown University) will speak on "Twelve Millennia of Farming in Anatolia: A Paleoethnobotanical Perspective". Lunch will be at 12, the lecture will be at 12:30.

Lecture Abstract:

Plants have much to say about people. Their presence in the archaeological record are testaments to the lives of past human communities who have planted, harvested, used them, and have entwined their imagination with images and stories of them. This talk explores the deep history of Anatolia—modern Turkey—by tracing changes in farming strategies across the region’s shifting socio-cultural and environmental landscapes. While covering a broad chronological scope, the focus will be particularly on the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, a period marked by the rise and fall of Anatolia’s first territorial power, the Hittite Empire, and the new socio-political networks that emerged following its collapse. Drawing on original data and a systematic survey of published scholarship, this talk also offers a critical reflection on the diverse ways paleoethnobotanical data can create historical narratives.