The archaeobotanical record of Britain in the Roman period is reviewed. The data are plotted against area of the country, phase of occupation, type of site, and mode of preservation. Lacunae in the dataset are identified and research priorities formulated. More data are needed, especially from South-Western and North-Western England, Wales and Scotland, from major towns (especially from waterlogged deposits), from rural sites with waterlogged preservation (all parts of the country), and from burials and temple/shrine sites. Matters of concern are the identification of a downward trend in the average number of samples analysed from the 1990s onwards, and poor access to unpublished archaeobotanical reports (grey literature). Possible solutions to redress these are offered.

The second (2008) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project has significantly advanced understanding of the Haua Fteah stratigraphy and of the archaeology and geomorphology of the landscape in which the cave is located. The excavations of the McBurney backfill have reached a total depth of 7.5 m below the present ground surface, the depth at which two human mandibles were found in the 1950s excavations. Reconnaissance at the Hagfet ed-Dabba established that the sediments associated with the Upper Palaeolithic ‘Dabban’ industry were more or less entirely removed by the McBurney excavation. Exploratory excavations in the Hagfet al-Gama, a coastal cave west of the Haua Fteah, found evidence of Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Hellenistic occupation. The initial results from the study of botanical remains, both macroscopic and microscopic, obtained in the 2007 season at the Haua Fteah confirm the potential of the site to yield a rich suite of materials to inform on climatic and environmental change, and on human activities in the cave.

Excavations at Zinchecra, a hill fort settlement of the Garamantes in Fezzan, southern Libya, have recovered a rich assemblage of desiccated and carbonised plant remains. The archaeobotanical analysis of this assemblage has produced a unique insight into the state of agriculture in the Sahara during the first half of the first millennium BC. Three cereal crops and three fruit crops have been identified, as well as salad plants and aromatic herbs. The use of wild plant resources has also been attested. The assemblage is dated by eleven radiocarbon dates to 900–400 cal BC. A well-developed agricultural regime was present, despite the harsh climatic conditions.

The absence of earth-filled structural features or easily identifiable graves precluded any systematic sampling programme for environmental evidence. However, two samples for the analysis of carbonised plant remains were collected from each of the two insitu inhumations (SF55 and SF73). The samples consisted of the sediment associated with the burials which included the matrix of the overlying cairn (context 002), and were processed using manual flotation into an 0.5 mm mesh sieve. The sample sizes and results are given in Table 1.

The evidence was minimal: only three fragments were found, none of which could be adequately identified. In sample 1, one grass seed was found, but it was badly preserved and could not be identified to genus. In sample 2, one cereal grain was found, again too badly preserved to distinguish it as either wheat or barley. The Polygonumsp. seed from sample 4 again is too fragmented to allow an identification to species level.

In questo articolo si tratta dei resti botanici raccolti durante gli scavi di D85, un insediamento collinare altomedievale nella valle del Biferno in Molise. Sono state raccolte grandi quantità di resti botanici carbonizzati. Sono stati trovate le seguenti piante: frumento, orzo, miglio, avena, ceci, fave, lino, fichi, uva e coriandolo. I risultati vengono messi a confronto con i dati etnografici sulle attività relative alla lavorazione dei raccolti. L'assenza di materiale di scarto della mietitura (pula e paglia) suggerisce che i cereali non venissero trasformati sul sito ma fossero portati da altri posti. Gli altri dati archeologici (ceramica, strutture, resti di fauna, ecc.), sebbene con qualche dubbio, suggeriscono anch'essi che il sito non fosse un normale villaggio agricolo.

This report discusses the first results of the botanical analysis of 182 samples from seven Romano-Libyan and two Islamic sites situated in the pre-desert of Tripolitania. Nine different crop plants have been discovered: barley, wheat, peas, lentils, olives, grapes, figs, dates and almonds. The likelihood of local production versus import, and of subsistence farming versus production for a market is discussed. No significant difference was detected between the range of crops found on the earlier open farms and those found on the later gsur.

Two seasons of work have now been conducted by British and French survey teams, in conjunction with members of the Libyan Antiquities Department, under the charge of Dr. Abdullah Shaiboub. The objectives of the survey are to locate, survey and analyse the extensive remains of the ancient agricultural settlements that can be found in the wadis of the hinterlands of Tripolitania and the Sirtica. Within the framework established by the Department in cooperation with Unesco lies the archaeological aim of recording the evidence for periods when extensive areas of the pre-desert were, for whatever reasons, cultivated in ways that are not similarly practised today. In the longer term the programme is designed to locate those areas where modern farming might be re-established. Archaeology is thus brought into line with the aims of the modern world.

For the purposes of this report we intend to concentrate on the period which we call the Romano/Libyan in which the great majority of those farming settlements flourished. The prehistoric evidence is in any case mainly of the palaeolithic period, on which there is a separate section.

The preferred zone of settlement in Tripolitania has traditionally been the well watered coastal plain and the adjacent limestone hills of the Tarhuna Gebel as far south as the town of Beni Ulid, for these regions have more than 200 mm of rain a year, regarded as the threshold for settled farming without irrigation. Prehistoric settlement concentrated here, and mixed farming has probably characterised this zone from the fourth millennium b.c. In the Roman period the coastal cities like Sabratha and Leptis Magna were supported by prosperous farms on the plain and in the Gebel. In the Islamic period, too, the same region was densely settled.