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Andrea in Ecuador |
Paleoethnobotany:The study of historic relationships between people and plants through the examination of ancient botanical remains.
In order to extract the ancient botanical remains, I have been using a process called flotation. Flotation uses water to loosen archaeobotanical remains from the soil matrix. The light materials (like charcoal and seeds) float, while heavier materials, like ceramics, rocks, and large bones, sink. The light weight materials are called the light fraction (the part I am interested in), and the heavy materials are the heavy fraction. The light fraction is poured off to a piece of cloth with very fine mesh, then dried and stored to be examined later. Very small particles of charcoal or seeds may be identified to family, genus, or in rare cases, to species in the lab using a microscope. In order to identify what types of plants we have from the archaeological samples, we will use a comparative collection of known plants and many reference books which contain micrographs (photos using a microscope) of known plants from other parts of the world. Seeds from plants of the same genus will usually have very similar characteristics, whether they are from the Netherlands or Africa, therefore our reference books at SFU will be helpful. However, some of the plants of Ecuador will be different (even the corn and barley look different here) so I have also been compiling a comparative collection here in Ecuador that will hopefully make its way back to the Paleoethnobotany lab at SFU. Jose Luis has collected many plants that are in seed and given them to me, I have in turn brought them to the Herbarium at Polytecnic University for scientific identification, then Javier, Claudine and I have extracted seeds from those plants for which we have scientific names. Once extracted, I put the seeds in the freezer for a few days, take them out to dry them for a few days, and then put them back in the freezer, then dry them out again. After this process, they should be safe to ship back to Canada and become part of the comparative collection at SFU. I also received many seeds from the seed bank of a Propogation program for Native plants at Polytechnic University (POA). Most of these were trees which already had the scientific names and are native to Ecuador. I also acquired branches from several different tree species. I have charred these in our fireplace at the Palace in order to create a comparative collection for charcoal which will also become part of the collection at SFU.
