IDENTIFYING PROBLEMATIC REMAINS OF ANCIENT PLANT FOODS - A COMPARISONOF THE ROLE OF CHEMICAL, HISTOLOGICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL CRITERIA

The paper explores the problems of isolating criteria for use in ident ifying ancient remains of plant foods, and the possibility of using ch emical residues in this role. It first discusses factors affecting the choice of such chemical criteria, and the taxonomic framework within which all chemical, morphological and histological criteria have to be assessed and applied. It then outlines three examples of the way in w hich criteria of all three types have been used by our research group in identifying archaeologically critical remains of foods plants from Late Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and early Neolithic sites in the Near Ea st.