1st Graduate Forum for Mediterranean Archaeology: Organic Material Analysis

This session of the 1st Graduate Forum for Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Cyprus presents four papers on organic material analysis, following a poster session.

Ismael Rodriguez Palomo from the University of Cambridge speaks on open search proteomics for identifying proteins and their post-translational modifications in archaeological ceramics. After outlining how liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry extract and match peptides from vessel matrices and calcareous incrustations, he explains why conventional closed search strategies identify only 5 to 10 per cent of spectra. He benchmarks the open search software MSFragger and AlphaPept against MaxQuant on 48 previously published ceramic samples up to 8,000 years old from the Mediterranean and Middle East, showing that open search increases peptide identification and detects glycations.

Maria Rousou of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris and the CNRS presents results from her doctoral research on the exploitation of fruit trees during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Cyprus. Examining over 11,000 wood charcoal fragments and 6,000 seed and fruit remains from Ayios Tychonas-Klimonas, Parekklisha-Shillourokambos and Khirokitia, she identifies wild pistachio species as dominant, alongside fig, wild olive, rockrose, Greek strawberry tree, deciduous and evergreen oak, pear, hawthorn and almond. Because the plant remains come from secondary rubbish deposits such as pits and wells, she combines contextual evidence like postholes, roof fragments at Khirokitia and burnt cob with branch imprints at Shillourokambos with ethnobotanical data from the Mediterranean and Near East to discuss uses for fuel, food, oil extraction, construction, fodder, basketry, hafting adhesives and leather tanning.

Panagiotis Koulouros of the Cyprus Institute introduces his doctoral research on first-millennium BCE woodland composition and management in Greece and Cyprus through wood charcoal analysis. Explaining the microscopic anatomy of softwoods and hardwoods across three section planes, he presents preliminary results from fourth-century BC to early Roman Corinth, where olive and pine dominate alongside pistachio and grapevine, and from a room fill in Cyprus containing only pine.

Kyriaki Tsirtsi, also of the Cyprus Institute, presents her doctoral study of macrobotanical and microbotanical remains from the Danish-Greek excavations in the plain of Sikyon in the Peloponnese. From 680 flotation samples across Archaic to Hellenistic contexts, she identifies cereals, vetch, olive, grape, pomegranate and almond, applies geometric morphometrics to olive stones from the Classical plain and Roman plateau, examines charred fig-based food lumps under scanning electron microscopy, and extracts wheat, millet and tuber starch granules from cooking and fine wares.

The closing discussion addresses mass-shift equifinality between sheep, goat and cow milk proteins, traditional Cypriot terebinth oil extraction and boxthorn corrals, the limits of vegetable dyes on Neolithic bast fibres, and the impact of Cypriot metallurgy on ancient woodlands.