|
Mark Nesbitt - Research Interests
Since starting work at Kew I no longer have time for archaeological fieldwork, but continue to participate in conferences and other aspects of academic life, including advising students and researchers. I act as a referee for research boards including the Arts and Humanities Research Council, NERC and NSF, and for journals including Current Anthropology, Economic Botany, Journal of Archaeological Science and Vegetation History and Archaeology, as well as various botanical and ethnobotanical journals. I’m working on a programme of publications in the subject areas below - some past publications are flagged up - but see here for a complete list.
 Hunter-gatherer subsistence and the origins of agriculture
Ihave a long-standing interest in these topics, fuelled by work on various hunter-gatherer sites in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey. I am convinced of the central role of crop husbandry in enabling/driving the major increase in settlement size and density in the PPNB onwards, and take a sceptical view of claims of domestication before this date.
Current work:
- Re-examination of early Holocene subsistence & diet in Turkey, taking into account recent evidence from Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in central and southeast Turkey, and genetic evidence for crop domestication.
- Review of crop domestication in southwest Asia.
- An attempt at correlating the proportions of different plant-foods at pre-agrarian sites, with the likely environment of those sites (maybe over-ambitious but I’d like to have a go).
M. Savard, M. Nesbitt, M.K. Jones. 2006. The role of wild grasses in subsistence and sedentism: new evidence from the northern Fertile Crescent. World Archaeology 38(2): 179-196.
Nesbitt, M. 2004. Can we identify a centre, a region, or a supra-region for Near Eastern plant domestication? Neo-Lithics 2004:38-40.
Savard, M., M. Nesbitt, and R. Gale. 2003. Archaeobotanical evidence for Neolithic diet and subsistence at M'lefaat (Iraq). Paléorient 29:93-106.
Nesbitt, M. 2004. Can we identify a centre, a region, or a supra-region for Near Eastern plant domestication? Neo-Lithics 2004:38-40.
Nesbitt, M. 2002. "When and where did domesticated cereals first occur in southwest Asia?," in The dawn of farming in the Near East. Edited by R. Cappers and S. Bottema, pp. 113-132. Berlin: Ex Oriente.
Long-term agricultural change in Turkey
 Having worked on sites dating from the Epipalaeolithic to Ottoman, I am interested in the broader patterns in Turkish agriculture. How and when did the different crops arrive in Anatolia? How do agricultural practices relate to large-scale political and economic change? How did agricultural trajectories vary between different regions? My interest encompasses agricultural history too, particularly changes brought about by European influences in the late Ottoman Empire, and the mini “agricultural revolution” of the 1940s and 1950s. As I complete publication of my site reports from Turkey, I’m looking forward to spending more time on syntheses.
Current work:
- Site reports on Aşvan, Gordion (Rodney Young excavations), Sardis, Can Hasan I, Kuruçay, Dilkaya. Analyses complete; interpretation/publication in progress.
- Collaboration with Simone Riehl on broad-scale patterns of change in Southwest Asia.
Nesbitt, M. 1995. Plants and people in ancient Anatolia. Biblical Archaeologist 58:68-81
+ various site reports.
Central Asia
After working at Merv, Turkmenistan, in 1992 I continue to be interested in the historical archaeology of the region, and in Islamic (and immediately pre-Islamic) agriculture in southwest and Central Asia as whole.
Current work: Collaboration with St. John Simpson (British Museum) on rice & Sasanian topics.
Nesbitt, M., and S. O'Hara. 2000. "Irrigation agriculture in Central Asia: a long-term perspective from Turkmenistan," in The archaeology of drylands: living at the margin. Edited by G. Barker and D. Gilbertson, pp. 103-122. London: Routledge.
Recovery and sampling
 Machine flotation is an essential tool for recovery of adequate quantities of charred plant remains at Near Eastern sites of all periods, though most of all for early (PPNB & earlier) sites which have very low seed densities. As well as building and operating pump-driven flotation machines at many sites, Delwen and I have instructed many archaeobotanists in the fine art of flotation.
Current work: We are keen to publish our (already widely circulated) manuscript guide to building and operating a flotation machine. Where?
Nesbitt, M. 1995. "Recovery of archaeological plant remains at Kaman-Kalehöyük," in Essays on ancient Anatolia and its surrounding civilizations, vol. 8, Bulletin of the Middle East Culture Centre in Japan. Edited by T. Mikasa, pp. 115-130. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Seed identification
 I have a long-standing interest in seed identification, primarily of cereal grains and chaff, and wild grasses. My work on wild grasses has been driven by problems in identifying abundant charred grains from pre-agrarian sites. As far as possible, I like identifications to be grounded in careful study of fresh material (hence a special interest in reference collections) and to use multiple criteria that are relatively objective. Not always easy!
Current work:
- Dividing and sending out seeds from the Nesbitt/Samuel 2500-specimen reference collection to archaeobotany labs including Basel, University of Queensland and UCL.
- Correlating grass caryopsis morphology with grass evolutionary relationships. In other words, looking from the point of view of systematics rather than identification.
Nesbitt, M. 2006. Identification guide for Near Eastern grass seeds. London: Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Nesbitt, M., S. Colledge, and M. A. Murray. 2003. Organisation and management of seed reference collections. Environmental Archaeology 8:77-84.
Hillman, G. C., S. Mason, D. de Moulins, and M. Nesbitt. 1996 for 1995. Identification of archaeological remains of wheat: the 1992 London workshop. Circaea 12:195-209.
Nesbitt, M., and J. Greig. 1989. A bibliography for the archaeobotanical identification of seeds from Europe and the Near East. Circaea 7:11-30. [Old but still useful]
 Wheat evolution
The great genetic and morphological diversity in wheats is a reflection of its complex evolution and long association with humans. For me it’s the most fascinating of all crop plants (and one of the most beautiful). I try to integrate the ever-increasing genetic data with archaeological evidence.
Current work:
- After giving a review of wheat evolution/archaeobotany at the Barbara Pickersgill meeting in August 2006, I am working up this for publication.
- With Elena Marinova - re-evaluating archaeobotanical evidence for spelt in the Neolithic to Bronze Ages, in the light of new genetic evidence pointing to a European origin of European spelt.
Nesbitt, M. 2005. "Grains," in The cultural history of plants. Edited by G. Prance and M. Nesbitt, pp. 45-60. New York: Routledge.
Nesbitt, M. 2002. "When and where did domesticated cereals first occur in southwest Asia?," in The dawn of farming in the Near East. Edited by R. Cappers and S. Bottema, pp. 113-132. Berlin: Ex Oriente.
Nesbitt, M. 2001. "Wheat evolution: integrating archaeological and biological evidence," in Wheat taxonomy: the legacy of John Percival, vol. 3, Linnean, Special Issue. Edited by P. D. S. Caligari and P. E. Brandham, pp. 37-59. London: Linnean Society.
Nesbitt, M., G. Hillman, L. Peña Chocarro, D. Samuel, and A. T. Szabó. 1996. "Checklist for recording the cultivation and uses of hulled wheats," in Hulled wheats. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Hulled Wheats. Promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops 4. Edited by S. Padulosi, K. Hammer, and J. Heller, pp. 234-245. Rome: International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.
|
