ARCHAEOBOTANICAL REMAINS OF HULLED AND NAKED CEREALS IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA

Archaeobotanical finds in Spain show differences in the representation of the different wheats and barleys. From the beginning of agricultur e (around 5000 B.C.) onwards, all wheats and barleys can be found at t he sites of the eastern Peninsula. But in later periods of the early N eolithic, free-threshing wheat becomes more important in the northeast and the southeast, compared to the hulled wheats (emmer and einkorn). Nevertheless, both naked and hulled barleys can be found in similar f requencies in this period. Seed analyses in the southeast and the east of Spain show the importance of naked barley compared with hulled bar ley in the third millenium uncal B.C. This is not the case in the nort heast, where hulled barley has a similar frequency in this period unti l the Iron Age, when both hulled barley and free-threshing wheat are t he most important taxa. The substitution of naked barley for hulled ba rley in the south-east Iberian Peninsula is very significant in the pe riod of greatest growth of the Argar culture. Free-threshing wheat can be found at a similar frequency throughout the study area, and was an important human food source together with the barleys. Hulled wheats seem to have played a secondary role as food in all periods, although they are constantly present in our samples. Nevertheless spelt wheat d oes not appear until the Roman period, when it is only found on the Ca ntabrian north coast, where it is important.