Seeds and weeds: Past and present agrobiodiversity and cultivation practices in South Caucasus – SWEED

In a part of Eurasia where high mountain chains contrast with broad alluvial valleys and the biodiversity is exceptionally high, populations have since long developed specific food producing traditions that today make the pride of the three South Caucasian republics, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as of the Azerbaijan province of northwest Iran. The SWEED project aims at reconstructing the earliest phases of agriculture in this region and to explore how the agrobiodiversity and cultivation practices changed through time, from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (c. 6000-2000 BCE). During the last decades, archaeobotanical studies have produced a large body of data that will be used to propose for the first time a comprehensive narrative of the early agrarian history of a region located at the crossroads of major biogeographical and cultural entities of the Old World. By associating archaeobotany, functional plant ecology, agronomy and biogeochemistry we will be able to focus not only on which annual and perennial species ancient farmers chose for their livelihood but also on how they managed crops in the fields in terms of the seasonality, perennity and intensity of cultivation practices. Fieldwork in Georgia will allow the creation of a referential of contrasting agroecological situations based on the combination of functional weed ecology and isotope analysis (N15, C13) that can be used for the interpretation of archaeological plant assemblages. Producing a much more detailed picture of protohistoric agricultural practices helps us understand not only the organisation of past subsistence economies but also how communities interacted with their territory and the organisation of the society as a whole.