Re-examining millet impressions in Usatovo clay materials from NW Black Sea region, Ukraine
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Publication Date
2019Journal Title
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES
ISSN
1866-9557
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
11
Issue
7
Pages
3201-3211
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
An, T., Pashkevich, G., & Jones, M. (2019). Re-examining millet impressions in Usatovo clay materials from NW Black Sea region, Ukraine. ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 11 (7), 3201-3211. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-018-0718-3
Abstract
The past decade has witnessed debates on the coherence of trans-Eurasian interaction into a particular episode, either the movement of 'cultural package' circulating around the 2nd millennium BC, or a process more dispersed in time and space. Of particular are the very early published records of broomcorn and foxtail millet in Western Eurasia. Records of charred millet in Europe pre-dating the 5th millennium BC have been called into question using direct radiocarbon dating. The other component of the early millet evidence, impressions in ceramics, consequently becomes critical. In this article, we re-examine a key sub-assemblage of early millet impressions in Europe, specifically those found in Usatovo materials from NW Black Sea Region (Ukraine) as a case study to assess the authenticity of such identifications. We conclude that SEM examination of Usatovo samples reveals insufficient evidence for a secure identification of Panicum miliaceum although the void dimensions may be plausible. We also draw attention to features that could usefully be sought when examining impressions in the future.
Keywords
Usatovo, Millet impression, Casting, SEM examination
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-018-0718-3
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/287992
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